How to install Windows XP on HP Compaq and other new age Laptops

Many of you have come across a blue screen while trying to install windows xp in your new laptop. This BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) is due to the fact that your Windows XP does not have the SATA drivers which is required to detect your Hard Disk Drives. The solution to this is to integrate SATA drivers to your winxp CD, the following steps will let you do it.

If you don’t have Floppy Disk Drive especially on a notebook. You still can install Win Xp by Slip streaming SATA driver into WinXp boot cd using nLite.

Materials needed:

1) nLite(download here), a free tool to help you slipstreaming(integrate) your SATA drivers into WinXp installation disk.

2) Extract SATA drivers  (Please see the corresponding Laptop models for SATA drivers )

(if you are using Intel chipset Intel 82801GR/GH, 631xESB/632xESB, 82801GHM, ICH8R/ICH9R, 82801HEM SATA RAID Controller, get the drivers from here)

Steps:

1) Get your Windows XP installation disk and copy the contents to a new folder(I named it “WinXp”).

2) Extract the SATA drivers you downloaded into a folder

3) Run nLite->choose “Next”.

4) Now, locate the Windows folder(for me, it’s “WinXp”).

5) Next again and you will come to “Presets”. Ignore this by choosing “Next” again.

6) In “Task Selection”, choose “Drivers” and “Bootable ISO” by high-lighting them.

7) Choose “Insert”->”Single driver”

Browse to the SATA driver folder and select either one of the .INF file, I choose “iaahci.inf”.

9) A screen like below will pop-up, make sure it’s “Textmode driver” ( This is the most important step ) and select all of them by holding CTRL+A key and choose “OK”

10) You shall see something like this. Choose “Next” and you will be prompted.

11) Choose “Yes” to start the process.

12) Let it finish and choose “Next”.

13) Finally, you can create your project as ISO image or burn it directly to CD-R under “Mode”. I choose “Direct Burn”. You can put anything for “Label” but not too long. Choose “Burn” and you will be prompted again.

14) Choose “Yes” to burn it to CD-R. Wait for it to finish and choose “Next”

15) Choose “Finish” to exit nLite.

Thats all You can now boot your laptop with this CD and install Windows Xp with out Blue screen showing.

Credits:: http://maxeasyguide.blogspot.com

Installing SATA Drivers for enabling SATA native mode after installing Windows XP

If you want to enable SATA Native Mode on your computer AFTER installing Windows XP follow this procedure.

For whatever reason, you may have installed Windows XP on your new laptop with SATA Native Mode disabled in the BIOS. Once XP is installed, enabling it in the BIOS will result in a BSOD upon loading Windows because XP doesn’t have the correct drivers.

Enabling SATA native mode will give you a slight performance increase and slightly increased battery life.

1.  Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software for your computer from the manufacturer’s web site

2.  Run it, by default it will save some files to C:\ before it runs setup and tells you that the software is not supported (alternatively you can uncompress the files to a temporary folder with a compression software like 7-Zip)

3.  Now open up a command prompt, go to the folder where the files were extracted and run the following command to extract the driver files: “setup -A -P”path of the extracted files” (without the quotes and there may be a space or not between -P and the path, depending on your version of the driver)

4.  Accept the license agreement, it extracts some files. The files you’re interested in are now in a “Driver” subfolder of the original folder and include the following :iaahci.cat, iaahci.inf, iastor.cat, iastor.inf, iastor.sys, TXTSSETUP.OEM

5.  Now go to Device Manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers you should see something like : Intel 82801GBM (ICH7-M Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller

6.  Right-Click on that and select Update Driver

7.  Say no to connecting to Windows Update to search, hit Next

8.  Select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced), hit Next

9.   Select “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install”, hit Next

10. Select Have Disk

11. Browse to the Driver folder and highlight the iastor.inf file, hit Open

12. Select OK

13. Now you should have a list of controllers. **WARNING** Selecting the wrong controller for your computer will prevent it to boot, causing BSOD. Make sure you select the right controller for your particular computer ! See this thread on HP forums for the controller inside some laptops: http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1057792

14. You’ll get warned that installing the device driver is not recommended, click Yes to continue installing

15. Click Finish

16. Click Yes to restart your computer

17. When your computer boots up, you need to to enter the BIOS. Change SATA Native Mode to Enabled, save changes and exit.

18. After you log into Windows, your computer will find the “new” hardware. Wait until you get the popup message to restart your computer, say Yes to restart one last time.

Credits : http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com

How to prevent your PEN drive from VIRUS

• Connect your Pen Drive or USB drive to your computer.
• Now a dialogue window will popup asking you to choose among the options as Don’t choose any of them , Just simply click Cancel.
• *Now go to Start–> Run and type cmd to open the Command Prompt window .
• *Now go to My Computer and Check the Drive letter of your USB drive or Pen Drive. ( E.g. If it is written Kingston (I:) , then I: will be the drive letter .)
• *In the Command Window ( cmd ) , type the drive letter: and Hit Enter .
• *Now type dir/w/o/a/p and Hit Enter
• *You will get a list of files . In the list , search if anyone of the following do exist
• 1. Autorun.inf
• 2. New Folder.exe
• 3. Bha.vbs
• 4. Iexplore.vbs
• 5. Info.exe
• 6. New_Folder.exe
• 7. Ravmon.exe
• 8. RVHost.exe or any other files with .exe Extension .
• If you find any one of the files above , Run the command attrib -h -r -s -a *.* and Hit Enter.
• Now Delete each File using the following Command del filename ( E.g del autorun.inf ) .
• That’s it . Now just scan your USB drive with the anti virus you have to ensure that you made your Pen Drive free of Virus .

How to create a USB mass storage drive; linux live boot using windows OS

Large format usb sticks and Knoppix now provide truly mobile computing capabilities. Your desktop can now reside on your keychain and interface with most any hardware.

These instructions assume you are using a windows based operating system on a machine with usb support. If you are using some other operating system you will need to find equivalent programs to open up the .img and .iso files. Some people have had success with the ‘Make usb pendrive bootable’ option from a live cd of Damn Small Linux.

Required materials:

• A usb memory stick with at least 75 megs free. The distro only takes 50 megs but it’s good to have a little extra padding.
• Winimage to open the image files. Make sure you allow it to install Filedisk to be able to mount the iso.
• Download ‘dsl-1.0rc2.iso’ and ‘bootusb-0.8.img’(or whatever is most current) from http://damnsmalllinux.org/download.html.

Make sure your computer can boot from usb. If it can not boot from usb, use dsl-embedded-1.0rc2.zip(or whatever is current) and you can run Damn Small Linux in qemu on linux and windows. The embedded distro takes around 100 megs but is the easiest way to get linux working on a usb memory stick.

After you have assembled your tools and verified you can boot from usb:

1. Format your memory stick in fat or fat16.
2. Open the boot image with Winimage.
3. Click on Disk then select your usb drive for the ‘use disk’ option.
4. Click on Disk again and then choose Write disk. It will complain about disk sizes not matching up. Tell it to shut up and get back to work.
5. Open the iso with Winimage.
6. Copy the entire file system of the iso including the exact directory structure to the root directory of your memory stick.

You don’t need to use a menu funtion to do this…just drag and drop the files onto your pen drive.

7. Reboot your computer
8. Enjoy the speed and goodness!