Can't downgrade Vista Home premium to XP Pro

I have partioned my hard drive and I'm trying to install windows XP Pro on the new partion. during setup I get message setup didn't find any Hard disk drives . My Computer is Acer Aspire 5715Z with Hitachi HTS 542512K9sA00. In the bios the HD is set to IDE not Sata as I expected. I can Install Windows 7 on the new Partion without any problem. All my Installation CDs are genuine, Legal CDs.

 

even tho you set it for ide, not sata, the xp install disk still may not have the proper drivers to recognize the hardware. You will either have to get the drivers and have them on a floppy, and you will be prompted during setup to install 3rd party drivers. or the alternative is to slipstream your install cd with the correct drivers. do a search on slipstreaming windows xp setup. theres 1 or 2 different ways to do it. i did it once for service pack 2 and it worked just fine.

 

Thanks for the reply, I'll look for the slipstream method and report back