Hi pls i just shrunk my hard drive using d hard drive tool that comes with vista and created a new partition which i named and formatted in ntfs. Upon poppin in my xp cd and booting up d wizard says it cant find any hard drive. Pls i need help. D hard drive is not locked or so i believe. Its a LG lapie. Bought brand new and untouched.

SATA!
well thank God for SATA cuz u woulda screwed up ur original Vista OS in a bid to install XP on the second partition using that method. Since u've got a SATA hard drive and XP cant see SATA hard drives with its natural eyes (you have to slipstream sata drivers with ur xp installation files before it can work), so xp just thinks there's no hard drive (u go blame am?).

there are ways out of this:
>Stick with vista, dont listen to wht pips say about it, they just toying with ur psychology

or

> Download a win XP SP3 (sata enabled) ISO

or

>Run xp virtually

or

. . . someone should continue from wer i stopped abeg.

Three ways


First Way,  (riskier)

Because you have already installed VISTA on a AHCI enabled system. It will not affect any of your personal files.

Go into your BIOS and look for the HD field (it should give you an option to enable of disable AHCI). If it doesnt then you CANNOT go on,

IF IT DOES: Then disable AHCI for the drive,  Save settings and reboot,

Try to boot Vista - what happens? If all fails, it will hang, otherwise it will be a slight hiccup as it tries to locate the old proprietary drivers for IDE,

Once Vista can boot properly, you can install XP,

WARNING: If Vista fails to boot - quickly reboot and change the settings in BIOS back.  This means you will have to go the Part 2 or 3



Second Way,  (safer and recommended)

Slipstream using nLite,  (www.nliteos.com) or vLite (www.vlite.net)

Download special XP drivers for AHCI from your hardware manufacturer's website

Install nLite and modify the XP image file to include the AHCI drivers,  This should be straightforward, I will leave that for you to play with

nLite will create a NEW XP image file to use, burn this and use as your install




Third way,  (great for fun)

Download virtual machine managers like Virtual Box, Virtual PC 2007 or VMWare,  Google them, 


The good thing about these is that you learn how an operating system operates,


Most of all ,  HAVE FUN,   

ur hard-disk is locked, use the utility software that came with the vista to remove the locking, i have encountered similar thing but i used windows unlimited to sovlve the problem u can try unlimited or unlock the hard-disk with the utility in vista. thanks somebody else
will continue from where i stoped

JUO:

somebody else
will continue from where i stoped

stop tiffing my lines
Copyright (c) 2009

Thanx @ all BUT PLS DNT MAKE A CASE 4 VISTA! It IS CRAP. I knw, am not a tech dunce n av bin on windows since 95 editn. Can u bliv d stupid fools dt manufactured d lapie actualy put vista on a 512mb ram!! As in even d os itself requires dt much 2 run. I didnt buy it bt am stuck wit it. It ain't fun. Can u bliv d amt of compatibility issues. N.b dnt tell me abt serv pack 2. So xp is it. As 4 xp sp3 it doesnt install sound onboard. Nlite etc, u hav 2 b joking. I shld start making my own xp iso? Pls. Dis is y im going opensource. And pls who knws hw 2 correct d vista bootloader. After xp it will prob overwrite d mbr n i dnt think d vista will register again. See wat i hav 2 go thru wit my own money n time? Bleep microsoft.

After unlocking your hard disk, then you will now install XP or any partition your lyke, of course your vista will no more pop up again,
then you will now download "Vista Boot Pro" and use it to create a new vista boot section . .so your vista alone will boot now
then you will now add XP to your vista boot menu. . .i hope someone can continue from here, otherwise forget about it, i am feeling sleepy

That is great guys, there must be solution for bro.

@4llerbe, i beleive akenzua_II as explainjed to you in an option like way,so yu need to take one of it and integrate it to what yu have already done, or yu can start again afresh.
Gud luck 2 yu.

akenzua_II:

Three ways

Second Way,  (safer and recommended)

Slipstream using nLite,  (www.nliteos.com) or vLite (www.vlite.net)

Download special XP drivers for AHCI from your hardware manufacturer's website

Install nLite and modify the XP image file to include the AHCI drivers,  This should be straightforward, I will leave that for you to play with

nLite will create a NEW XP image file to use, burn this and use as your install

Third way,  (great for fun)

Download virtual machine managers like Virtual Box, Virtual PC 2007 or VMWare,  Google them, 


The good thing about these is that you learn how an operating system operates,


Most of all ,  HAVE FUN,   

Nice tutorial

Guy if your system does not have sata mode i.e where you can disable or enable sata just save ur self of all these wahala if you are i Lagos just go to the computer village and ask the ikeja software guys for WINXP DARK EDITION of course its not from microsoft a guy forgotten his name took the original M$ Xp and put some addons. But it has an option for sata which have use several time for customers it  nice.It even has widows blind and xp styler etc,