Thinkpads Forum

I just ordered a new T60p (with Vista). Since I still do lots of work with XP, although I will be using some form of virtualization (VMware or VPC 2007) in Vista and putting XP up as a guest OS, I would like to have a separate hard drive with just XP on it (just in case).

I am planning on purchasing either the Hitachi 100GB 7200 or Seagate 100GB 7200.1 from Newegg. I will also be purchasing a copy of XP Pro.

Can somebody point me in the direction of what steps I need to follow to install a clean version of XP on a brand new hdd? Most of the posts deal with installing a clean version of XP but assumes you have can get files off your current hdd - which I will not have since I bought Vista. I read the "Install Clean XP" sticky but also read about the separate partition which contains the backup software and diagnostics. Do I need that? Is that the ThinkVantage stuff which you can download from here?
I also found the Rescue and Recovery software which you can download from here. I assume to download drivers, I just need to go here and have the website figure out which drivers I need?

Any other recommendations on what needs to be installed and how to do it based on everybody's experience of what is needed and not needed?

Just want to be ready when the new laptop comes in a few weeks.

Thanks for your help.

How do you mean you won't have all of the XP discs? You said something about purchasing a copy of XP Pro....

Anyway, if you have the XP Pro disc....you should be able to put in your new hard drive, put the XP Pro disc in the CD drive, and boot off of that. It should then prompt you and walk you through the XP install process which will format your hard drive and install XP onto it.

After you install it, then you get to play the game of finding and installing all of the Thinkpad's hardware drivers. Actually, it might be smart to at least download the network drivers for XP beforehand and copying that to a CDROM - that way once the Thinkpad comes up with XP, if it didn't automatically install network drivers for your hardware you've got them on a disc and can go online from there to get the rest.

I'd call it good after installing all of the hardware drivers and running Windows update until it completes. I wouldn't worry about a backup partition for the XP drive (you've got the install disc, you shouldn't need to waste a partition with the CD contents). Personally, I hate all of the ThinkVantage software anyway, so if I was doing a clean install, I wouldn't install any of the IBM software unless it was absolutely necessary.

Good luck!

edmicman,

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, I will have XP disks (bought the software yesterday) - I meant I won't have the disks from the Lenovo (assuming there are some) - whatever they are - sorry for the confusion. From your comments, it sounds like you don't get disks but instead need to burn a cd off of what is currently on the hdd and run those?

So after installing XP, it's just a matter of getting the correct drivers installed. Cool. I've seen many posts on that which should help me. I was more concerned about the separate partition which it sounds like all factory hdd's come with.

Thanks again.

Don't forget that you will likely have to set your SATA hard drive interface to "Compatibility" mode in the BIOS or else Windows XP won't recognize the drive. Once you get the system up you should install the "Intel Matrix Storage Driver" and then reboot into the BIOS and change the setting back. You need to have the driver installed before changing the setting back or Windows won't even boot.

Thanks Kyle for the information. I do remember reading about those two steps.

No problem, if you forget to set Compatibility mode, the install won't see your drive, not a big deal. But if you don't have the driver properly installed and switch it back to AHCI, Windows will blue screen on boot, that's pretty scary. Luckily if that does happen, you can just change the BIOS setting back to Compatibility, boot Windows, and try the install again. There didn't seem to be any problems as a result of this blunder.

These days, I just use a custom nLite copy with the Intel Matrix Storage Driver integrated into it so I can just leave the BIOS setting on AHCI and install Windows. For convenience I also integrated the wired and wireless LAN drivers.

Good luck getting your new machine configured and I'm glad I could help.

Quick question. I bought a new HD from new egg. the 7200rpm 100gb hitatchi drive. I changed the bios to compatability mode before installing Vista on it. Now that Vista is up and running fine and i think i applied most updates, i went back to the bios and changed the setting back to AHCI. Machine boots to a BSOD. I changed it back to Compatability and it boots fine. What to do? Do i need AHCI mode selected? Am i forgetting something?

kf_man wrote:Don't forget that you will likely have to set your SATA hard drive interface to "Compatibility" mode in the BIOS or else Windows XP won't recognize the drive. Once you get the system up you should install the "Intel Matrix Storage Driver" and then reboot into the BIOS and change the setting back. You need to have the driver installed before changing the setting back or Windows won't even boot.

what he said

stephenaron wrote:Quick question. I bought a new HD from new egg. the 7200rpm 100gb hitatchi drive. I changed the bios to compatability mode before installing Vista on it. Now that Vista is up and running fine and i think i applied most updates, i went back to the bios and changed the setting back to AHCI. Machine boots to a BSOD. I changed it back to Compatability and it boots fine. What to do? Do i need AHCI mode selected? Am i forgetting something?

I am having the exact same problem... how can I fix this? Also, if I wanted to embed the AHCI driver into a Vista install disc how would I go about doing this as referenced above? Thanks!

You don't need the AHCI driver for Vista. Not only does Lenovo not provide one, but it installed on my T60 with no problem at all. This was done in AHCI mode, not Compatibility...

EDIT: Just noticed a few things, this thread has gone a bit off topic... First, the OP was talking about Windows XP and my answers before applied to Windows XP only. There is no Intel Storage Matrix driver that I'm aware of and I believe Vista has it built in (at least for 32-bit). Chrispy, I noticed reading one of your other posts that you are using Vista x64, that's a whole other ball game since not even Lenovo is providing a full lineup of 64-bit drivers. There may be a need for a AHCI driver, but my bet is that one is not available. It might be a good idea to start a new topic about this since we have already confused this topic quite a bit...