Installing XP on Inspiron 1720

Hi,

I got a new Inspiron 1720 that came with the hated Vista.
Unfortunately, when I tried to install XP Home from an 9 month OLD OEM winxp home sp2 installation I got a message saying that my PC had no hard drive and installation could not continue.
This is obviously not the case as it works with Vista.

Any ideas ?

Thanks,

Enzo

P.S.
I know that the OEM license can only be used once, but my idea was to install XP first to see if it works and then get a proper license.

 

I got around this first hurdle : I had to disable AHCI.
It's installing now, I'll let you know.

Enzo

 

An alternative path you could've taken is build a slipstreamed XP CD with the SATA drivers integrated. The bonus of this path is the ability to tweak the OS before it's even installed.

 

Thanks LordBug, but that would be beyond my capabilities.

So far everything seems to have gone ok using the drivers on this Dell page :
http://support.ap.dell.com/support/...SystemID=INS_PNT_PM_1720&hidos=WLH&hidlang=en

The only device I had problems with was the modem and I had to find it on another Dell page.

There we some other partitions that I left in peace. Should I delete them ?
They seem to be related to Vista recovery and some multimedia stuff. One I think was FAT and I could leave it there so that I can transfer files to winxp from Linux (recent versions are supposed to read/write from winxp, but I have never tried.

I still need to check that wireless, modem and my 3G phone (all vital for when I work away from home) actually work. That's the only thing that worries me a bit since I need to go to Italy for 2 months and modem and 3G phone are best tested locally.

Next, Linux installation.

 

Those other partitions have no real use (One is the recovery partition, which is just a copy of the discs you should've gotten with your machine, the other the Media Direct partition, which if you're not using it, is useless, and the last is some sort of diagnostics partition, once again useless in my opinion).

Slipstreaming is actually really easy. nLite @ http://www.nliteos.com/ is the program to use. If you don't plan on installing XP again for a while, no need to worry. But if there's a chance, I'd suggest you try it.