Arch Linux

geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

dual booting on my dell laptop

Ok, I know that this shouldn't be posted here..
But it is for good purpose, please help if you can.

So, I have bought a dell inspiron 1525 laptop
shipped with ubuntu. I formatted the disk
and my plan is to install arch and windows xp
(dual boot). So, I partitioned the disk with gparted,
making a couple of primary partitions (windows,
windows page file, root) and an extended partition
with logical partitions for /boot, /home, /swap etc..

Now, I was planning to install XP first and arch
second so I will not have to reinstall grub afterwards.

I have an XP cd which I used for my desktop
and it is working fine, no scratches etc.
So I boot up the laptop, select boot menu,
I enter the XP cd and choose to boot from CD.
Then there appears a "Checking system hardware
configuration" or something like that and then the
screen shows nothing, while the machine is working
(you can hear it working and the led for the disk keeps
lighting).. That happens for half an hour, the installation
never proceeds (i never see the blue ncurses screen of
installation).

I tried with a cd of my friend and I have the same issue.
Booting from the cd and then wait forever.

Do you have any idea about that? Do laptops require
special editions of windows? (Btw I'm not doing anything
illegal, this CD was bought and its legal).

Again SORRY for posting a windows question here.
My main purpose is to dual boot with arch, I've been using
linux for years, I know nothing about windows, (I'm totally
clueless when it comes to troubleshooting) but unfortunately
I need them and before I start registering to other forums
to ask, I thought it would be okay if I posted just one
windows question here, just in case someone knows..

Thanks in advance..

stefanwilkens

Member

From: Enschede, the Netherlands

Registered: 2008-12-10

Posts: 624

Re: dual booting on my dell laptop

Ok, I know that this shouldn't be posted here..

lol.

Ah well, here goes.

I think your laptop uses a SATA / IDE controller for which the default windows xp CD has no drivers.

I believe this is the driver you need:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloa … eid=224400

You can extract that .exe file with winrar and then use something like nlite to combine the drivers with the windows xp installation cd. Your newly created xp installation cd will then have the required drivers to access your laptops harddrive.

Alternatively I think you can place the extracted driver files on a USB disk and introduce then to the windows XP installer via the F6 key.

Google knows, my friend
http://www.google.com/search?q=dell+ins … windows+xp

On the upside, installing arch should not be a problem at all!

Last edited by stefanwilkens (2008-12-10 23:57:57)

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Arch i686 on Phenom X4 | GTX760

geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

Re: dual booting on my dell laptop

Oh, thanks a lot!
I wouldn't believe that installing XP would be that difficult!!
Of course arch is simplerto install once you learn it,
I've done that a bunch of times!.
Ill check your links and come back.
Thanks so much!

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,231

Website

Re: dual booting on my dell laptop

I wouldn't believe that installing XP would be that difficult!!

Reinstalling Vista the other day took me an entire 9 hour work day, reinstalling from the recovery partition on my laptop

XP isn't much better.

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geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

Re: dual booting on my dell laptop

Hi again!
Actually the problem was with the partitioning!
I formatted back the disk to unpartitioned space
everything works!

Then I used a XP disk with integrated
drivers for the SATA disks as stefanwilkens
suggested, maybe if I hadn't done that the
installation would proceed but the laptop
wouldn't recognise the drive.. I have googled many
cases like that.

Ok, now when I have questions about windows, I know
where to ask!!

geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

Re: dual booting on my dell laptop

Just to confirm that if you try to boot from the original xp cd,
you don't see no hard drive! You have to make a custom installation
cd and integrate the drivers.. Speaking of convenience!
There are so many people who want to "downgrade" to XP and can't..
What can I say..
Thanks again!