Some guidance with hard drive/OS install

Hi guys, my T400 should be here any day along with the 320GB hard drive I purchased to install. I ordered with Vista basic as I plan to install XP office instead. What is the process I need to follow to get this thing up and running, can I simply install the new HD right from the start and throw in XP, or do I need to copy the drivers/programs from the original HD first....thanks in advance.....long story short I just want my new HD and XP installed as easy as possible on my new laptop....cheers

 

The best idea will be to slipstream the drivers and condense down XP before installing this. This will save you much time and stress. You can use nLite for this task. Link You will have to see if there are XP drivers for your machine or any guides out with these drivers. Sometimes using the existing drivers will work, but it seems to be a toss up. Search around for a guide about how to do this. Lenovo should be pretty good about drivers.

 

You need to get XP drivers. So no you can't just copy "the drivers" as they will be Vista. While I think it can be done. As anything can be. I do not think going to be easy. Normally you can get drivers for the hardware you want to install. Might have trouble as well new platform and I doubt Lenovo wrote any drivers for the hardware you have and XP. I would suggest if you really want to do consider a dual boot while you are doing. So you can make sure you have XP in place.

Very frustrating when you get most things working but not a couple items.

I am not trying to throw a monkey wrench into your plans as I think? Go for it. But make no mistake you cannot just take your Vista drivers and use on XP. Go to Lenovo forum and see if anyone has done yet.

I suspect your biggest issues will be Wi-Fi and peripherals?

Off topic I got Vista about two weeks ago. I hated but as you learn it you hate less. Is there a reason other than what you have read as to why you are not going to use Vista? If not consider using Vista and get used to it? You can turn off many things in Vista to make it work more like XP if you want. Will still be Vista so the UI will be different.

Any comment on my concerns?

 

short of installing XP right of the start, can I clone my HD to the new 320gb HD I'm going to install and then just plug it in and be up and running?

 

great reply....truth be told I'd be happy to just install my new HD and use Vista before deciding what to do.......so as I asked in my previous post is that simply a matter of cloning my HD to the new HD?

 

Yes it should be. But I have never done. I generally just reinstall manually?

 

Is that possible with the recovery discs alone? my laptop isn't shipping with a copy of vista

 

I am only on my 3rd new notebook and #3 have not done anything with yet. The newest is less than two weeks. The first came with an OS disk. The second came with a disk. It said recovery or something. Did not say Windows but Windows was on it. You should have similar. I guess I have heard some expect you to burn on your own? But either way you do have a way to reinstall OS.