How do I find out if XP will work on my computer?
Does vista work like XP? I’ve never touched vista but reinstalling a previously preloaded copy of XP often just copies a drive image and doesnt really do an install from scratch. I’ve had computers that came with XP but were erased to install linux and when reinstalling XP, the install program would crash when it couldn’t find a windows partition. A real installer should work through it, but it may not if it’s just copying a drive image.
The only way it wouldn’t is if there was hardware in it that had only Vista drivers available. The 1420 has XP drivers available for everything.
Here’s a how-to with links to the drivers. Drivers for the Vostro 1400 will also work, they are the same hardware internally.
Too much emphasis in this thread is devoted to the hard drive and not **yoyodyne’s **comment.
Check your BIOS settings. Machines these days are manufactured for Vista and not XP. The XP compatibility only comes into play when you change the BIOS back to a compatibility mode that XP can identify. If you cannot change the BIOS, you need to install the appropriate drivers for XP to work with your machine.
See …
http://www.davidreedonline.com/wordpress/2007/08/03/installing-windows-xp-on-the-dell-inspiron-1420/
External USB floppy drives are around $20
Or alternatively just make a bootable CD drive; it’s not that hard anymore.
The f6 driver preload interface will only read floppy drives.
I’ve now used nlite to make a bootdisk, burned the iso, but when I put it in the computer and reboot, it just goes straight into Ubuntu. I have it set to boot to CD first, but at no point does it give me the option to go into the installation, just acts as though there’s no disk in the tray.
Ok. disregard the last post. I hadn’t actually made a bootdisk…
However, now, I have. I’ve made three. Doing EXACTLY what those websites are saying, and I’m still getting the exact same error I got with the original disk!
Does anyone have any more ideas?