Thinkpads Forum

Hello,
I am having trouble installing windows xp on my lenovo thinkpad x100e. Currently it has windows 7 on it. I've never done this before using usb, and have done it before using a disc, but am not tech saavy or really know what im doing, just following guides. so i found a tutorial somebody did for an EeePC or some other netbook. i had an xp iso and mounted it using daemon tools and then used WinToFlash to put it onto a USB drive. Then i restarted the thinkpad , pressed enter to go into the menu and go into the boot from usb flash, it shows the name of my flash drive as a option. i select option 1, something with 'text' in it, it starts up a familiar windows boot menu that i remember i've seen before. when it shows the partitions, there is only a 'W:' partion that shows up, its around 14000MB, and when i try to delete it or format it to NTFS but it never goes through, keeps giving me errors. i tried others, and there were some other options in that menu where i first selected the 'text' option, like option 2, something about a GUI, but that gives me a missing Hal.dll message, and then that option menu has a Debug option saying to try that if i got the hal.dll error, i try that and it gets another error and freezes, forcing me to hold the power button to shut off. anyone able to do this or help me out?
Thanks in advance!

Your best options would be to try to get the Windows XP downgrade media from Lenovo. You should be entitled to them as a result of your Windows 7 licence. However, Lenovo may charge you for the discs. Then buy or borrow a USB DVD-ROM drive. If installing Windows XP and you get HAL errors, try switching the hard drive controller in the BIOS from AHCI to compatibility mode (hopefully that option exists in the X100e) BIOS. You need some drivers from Lenovo's website to re-introduce AHCI into Windows XP. Try Google for some guides in installation. Good luck.

Cheers.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, looks like its gonna cost me for the disc, and i guess i'd need to buy a DVD rom drive too if i was to go that route.
would any of this help >> http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 74463.html ??

thanks again

Yes, all the drivers are there to get all of the X100e features working with Windows XP if you decide to install from your own Windows XP ISO. As I said before, once you're set hard drive to compatibility mode in the BIOS, install Windows XP and then install the following before setting the BIOS back to AHCI mode:

AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Driver
Windows XP 17 Dec 2009 v3.2.1540.14

Cheers,

I have installed X100E with windows xp with no problem. you just need to download AMD ahci driver and install put it on a floppy disk. You also need a IBM usb floppy that i bought from ebay for $10. press F6 upon windows xp installation and do the routine xp installation. Install lenovo system update and connect it to the internet and let Lenovo system update install all drivers and then do a reboot. Voila! you have win xp on your X100E.

lovan6 wrote:I have installed X100E with windows xp with no problem. you just need to download AMD ahci driver and install put it on a floppy disk. You also need a IBM usb floppy that i bought from ebay for $10. press F6 upon windows xp installation and do the routine xp installation. Install lenovo system update and connect it to the internet and let Lenovo system update install all drivers and then do a reboot. Voila! you have win xp on your X100E.

There's no need to buy floppy or cdrom drivers, just use nlite to add the AMD AHCI drivers to the vanilla installation, then use "usb multiboot" to transfer the installation on a cheap USBkey or SDcard.

Optionally you can easily download the four oem bios files that paired with the signature in the bios and the correct lenovo serial will give you a legit preactivated and unattended installation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Loc ... stallation

Just search for "XP SLP Lenovo" to find the correct files

Optionally, with nlite you can also add the missing drivers and/or post sp3 MS fixes.