Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,

Just got my new t61 today got it from CDW bc I didn't want to wait and it had everything i wanted except the 7200rpm HDD, which I also ordered and recieved today. A seagate momentus 7200.1 100gb.

My T61 came with vista ultimate on the 5400rpm 160 hdd. So i yanked that out, put in the new momentus hdd and slapped in my xp pro cd since I hate vista. After all the drivers loadup and ask to hit enter to install xp it just says there is no HD. If I try to boot without xp cd it just goes to a black screen with a blinking cursa and nothing else.

Is there anything special i need to do to install XP pro?

OR

Do i have a bad hdd?

OR both?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Regards,
Yo Han

You need to change HDD settings from SATA to Compatibility mode in the Bios.

Thank you sir!! That was it, she's formatting rt now. Thanks again!

since I'll probably do this when I get a t61p (I'll get vista ultimate only for resale value), I'd like to know if it's ok to switch the BIOS setting back after windows XP is installed and up to date? Speaking of which, my current windows install cd is XP pro with updates slipstreamed in up to feb. 2007....is the compatibility mode required for such slipstreamed installs? I know I could just wait and find out, but it's always good to know
thanks

Could you just press F6 and have the mass storage driver on a floppy or build a custom XP install that includes the mass storage driver for the T61? Chinging it back after installing XP may not prevent the BSOD unless you get the SATA driver installed properly before changing the BIOS.

DirkM: I was thinking it would be in a revised edition of the chipset drivers.

Before you re-install vista, be sure to re-enable SATA mode to get the drivers loaded correctly.

This readme file for the Intel Matrix Storage Manager explains it all.

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mo ... im06ww.txt