HP Compaq 6710B clean XP or do I have to use downgrade cd?

I will have my HP Compaq 6710B delivered this week.

Unfortunately it is pre-installed with Vista Business but I can get a downgrade cd with XP from HP.

Now, because I do not wish to wait for the cd I am thinking of simply downloading all drivers for XP from HP and then do a clean install with an XP I already own.

This should work, right? I mean, the downgrade cd contains nothing more than XP and the drivers that I can download myself?

The 6710B itself is equipped with the usual 2GB of ram and 250GB harddrive and the T9300 cpu.

And do any of you know if the computer will be shipped with a Vista dvd?

 

mine didn't have any recovery disc. need to burn by myself

 

The downgrade CD is actually a clean XP Pro SP2 install with the drivers set in a separate CD. Either way, if you have your own copy of XP, you can load it.

If you have SATA enabled in BIOS, just make sure your XP disc has been slipstreamed with the ICH8 drivers or else you may disable SATA while installing XP. HP's CD is already slipstreamed with the SATA drivers.

 

I have the GF940AT model of the 6710b, which also came preloaded with Vista Business. The laptop also had a CD containing a clean version of Window's XP Professional SP2, which works, however if you try installing your own version of Window's XP, it will tell you in the Setup that it cannot detect your hard drive and the setup will close. In my case, my CD got scratched, and none of my XP CD's work. I'm stuck with Vista for now until I get another Recovery CD from HP. However, if you get it to work, let us know. Just like chrixx said, you might need to slipstream your CD with the SATA drivers to get it to work. And yes, the laptop provides both the Vista DVD and the XP CD with each of their drivers.

famwka

 

I would just do the clean install and download all the drivers