Switched a vista hd to a xp hd and windows will not open

Perform a backup of all your data to an external hard drive.Do a clean install of XP, erasing Vista.Re-install your programs, and then restore your files from the backup.
It used to be much harder, but now you can do it easily. Also, if you have Vista Professional, I believe you can just put in the XP disk and it will give you options for ez downgrade back to XP pro

Hi ,
yes you can open your case and there should be two ide cables , one to your harddrive the 2nd to your cdrom/dvd player , diconnect the cdrom drive and use the cable to go into your 2nd harddrive , copy all you want , then just reinstall the cd drive and your good to go ............you might have to go into your setup or cmos and have the harddrive detected ......................Good luck Roy

xp is kind of not supported as much anymore by Microsoft.

Vista will soon be this way as well.

If you lost the installation cd then you are out of luck.

Try getting windows 7 full version and installing it on the machine, if it's worth the money to you to try to revamp this computer.

You should download the drivers BEFORE you change the OS and maybe put them on a flash drive or burn them to a CD.

You can get them direct from the DELL site.

It maybe that your XP disc does not recognise a SATA drive and for that reason you should use the F6 option whilst booting from the XP setup disk and point it to the CD or flash drive.

From then on you should be able to format the disck.

Some of the dells are a little tricky that way.

You may also have to change the bios option as for sata type
I have had to do this on a few dell laptops.to down grade from vista to XP

Yes, the motherboard should support that size drive with no problems. You will have to reinstall windows using the discs that dell sent you originally. Be aware the drivers for dell can be tricky to reinstall.

You will need adriver for the webcam. Go to this site: http://blogntech.com/download-acer-emachine-e520-xp-vista-driver.html There will be two lists of Web Camera drivers. The first is for WIndows XP, the second is for Vista. Install the driver for your operating system, and the webcam should work. I hope this helps, Yannick.

Hello,

connect your hard drive to other computer and then have it clean by scanning with antivirus. and then copy the important files on it to the working computer. after copying the files thats the time to return back the original hardrive to the dell dimension and then reformat and reinstall the system again again. please use original operating from dell or what ever is applicable.

mlenavz

If the CNTL+F11 keystroke is not available at boot (Blue bar at top of screen immediately after Dell Splash Screen) then you cannot run PC Restore on that system and will need to reinstall Windows Manually.by booting to the WIndows XP CD

Hello caliandrew88,
Having a full D Drive will not cause Vista to crash. If you need to free up space then get an external hard drive to move files off of your machine.

- Vincent

ya u would have to reinstall it all formatt it iuse your xp or vista i love vista better then xp just update it boot into your cd u could try bootuing into safe mode f8 see whats starting up in msconfig maby a bug stopping it