Issues with Dual Boot Vista and XP on Compaq 6735s

I am trying to help a friend who purchased a Compaq 6735s notebook. It came with Vista installed, but he wanted XP as that is what he is familiar with. Also wanted to have Vista to become familiar with that os. I partitioned the drive changed the SATA setting to IDE in CMOS and installed XP Home on the drive. On reboot it now defaults to XP but doesn't recognize the Network Controlller and several other "unknown devices" Of course I am unableto connect to the internet to download new drivers etc. So my questions are: What information is necessary to diagnose this problem? Where can I find that? (and) How can I choose between OS's at startup and avoid device compatibility issues? Thank you for any help or direction.

 

Fist of all, since .Vista was installed in AHCI mode, trying to boot to .Vista is going to cause a BSOD unless you switch the drive mode back.
Second of all, you're missing the drivers.
Go to Compaq's website and download the drivers. If Compaq does not support these devices in XP, you can use Unknown Devices to pull the hardware IDs, then google for generic drivers (such as those from the device manufacturer).

 

Thank you. I was able to install the driver for the network controller and connect to the internet. I followed the link and downloaded the program for unknown devices. It was able to describe the devices for me and I googled those descriptions. Every site I have visited, though, has wanted me to purchase something to get the drivers. Is there a good trusted resource for free driver downloads?

 

Whoever manufactured the device the the best place.
IE - Intel Wireless, intel's website. SigMaTel Audio, SigMaTel's website. And so on.

 

Thanks for the help. Still have a couple unknown devices of which the manufacturers are not identifiable, but as far as I can tell everything seems to be in working order. Again, thank you.

 

No problem. If you want to give me those hardware IDs I'll take a quick look to see if I can get you the drivers.