XPS M1330, Windows XP installation

Ok before I do this I want to make sure I understand everything. I'm sorry I posted something similar in another thread but I have more questions.

I would like to get rid of Media Direct when I repartition my HD. I'll just list the steps of all the reading I've done and would it be cool if someone just confirms its ok?

1. Change my SATA to IDE or ACHI to ATA before I put in the windows cd.
2. Install XP and Repartition.
3. Then install the drivers that are found in the Windows XP M1330 Thread.
4. Install SATA drivers and change it back to SATA option.

After these things everything should work right?

Here are the problems that I am worried about encountering.
1. My Media Direct button won't work and I have read that it will corrupt my OS, but I have been told that it might not. (To fix this, I was thinking of changing its function so pressing it won't allow it to load MD but instead have it do something else.)

2. I have also read that the Quickset program won't run with XP.

3. And lastly I read that the fingerprint reader program does not work as well, but I think that has been fixed?

Bottom line: I just want EVERYTHING i paid for to work properly with XP. Does anyone know of any other problems with a downgrade to XP?
Thanks in advance.

 

Bumping the thread

 

From the list of steps you plan on doing:

1. My understanding is that works but my understanding is that it's better to slipstream SATA drivers into your XP CD with nLite. That's what I did and it worked great. It's been awhile though so I can't really help you with it. You'll just have to research it if you want to do it that way. I've read about many people who have successfully done it your way.

2. You're likely going to have problems with the media direct button if you do that. I sure did. I just stuck my modified XP disc in and reformatted and installed like you said. Deleted all the partitions that the XP install disc saw and then started fresh with an NTFS format. Booted into XP, installed all drivers, etc, hit the media direct button and it nuked my install. The easy way to fix this is to download the free version of KillDisk. You can use it to totally wipe your hard drive (something the XP install CD is not capable of doing). After you do that, then install with the XP CD like you said. Should work fine. After doing it that way the media direct button will boot windows just like the power button.

3. I would not use the drivers found on the WinXP 1330 thread unless you go to the Dell drivers page for the 1330, select WindowsXP for the operating system and find that they do not offer the drivers for what you're looking for. An example of a driver you would want to get off the thread would be the bluetooth drivers. Most other drivers for XP are on the Dell site. Might as well use them.

4. I don't have a problem with that method....just might consider what I said in 1 above...

From your anticipated problems list:

1. See 2 above.

2. I didn't install the quickset so I couldn't tell you. I'm not sure what all that does but everything works for me the way I've got it.

3. I have the fingerprint reader but only because I could only get the deal I wanted with the fingerprint reader installed. I did install the software for it the first time I installed XP on the 1330 and it looked like it would probably work fine but I wasn't interested in using it so the next time I reformatted I just disabled the fingerprint reader in the device manager so I can't say for sure.

Other notes:

I had a hard time with the sound drivers. This is what I found to make it work after much searching:

1. Install the sound driver off the Dell website. After it's done you will not have sound. Do not restart yet.

2. Go to the device manager. You will find a PCI device all by itself down towards the bottom with an error.

3. Right click on it. Select "update driver".

4. It will ask if you want to search the web for drivers. Select no.

5. It will ask if you want to automatically install the drivers. Select yes.

6. After it's done it will say it's found new hardware and then that the new hardware has been installed. You should now have sound. Restart.

7. When it starts again, it will try to finish installing the drivers. Basically, is what happened is that when it quit installing last time, it had failed, but you helped it to finish the process. Now that you've restarted, it's going to try to finish the job. Let it do it. It'll say something about not having the appropriate hardware on your system for the drivers. Click ok and don't worry about it. You've got sound....

The whole sound issue is not something you read about on a regular basis which leads me to believe that not many people have that problem. You may not and if you don't you can ignore my advice. However, if you have a problem, you have the fix.

 

I'm really hoping someone can help out with this.

I installed XP on my M1330 by disabling sata in the BIOS. After install I read a guide on the net (which i can't find now!) to tweak a driver setting by a digit or two. I did it!

Rebooted and enabled Sata - everything fine.

Problem is every few days - just randomly I get a nice BLUE SCREEN with the following error.

STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x89B06908, 0x89B06A7C, 0x805D13B6)

Can anyone shed any light on how to stop this happening?