Can this laptop use Windows XP?

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited April 2008 in Science & Tech
I had someone call me to help with a computer today. It's a Dell Inspiron 1720. It has the Core 2 Duo (I think) 1.5 Ghz CPU, 3GB Yes, 3GB of RAM:bigggrin: a 128 MB Geforce 8400M GS video card, and a 250 GB SATA hard drive.

It has Vista on it, and as we all know, VISTA SUCKS!!! I had to transfer some files to this laptop and it was a real pain in the ass for what should have been a simple task. It couldn't even burn a CD properly!

They want to know if I can buy another SATA hard drive for the laptop to replace the one in it now and install Windows XP Home SP2 on it.

I can, but my only concern is drivers. Does XP have driver support for the hardware in this laptop? Dell doesn't offer XP as an option on it, but they do on other computers that they make.

If XP doesn't support this laptop's hardware, can I find all the needed drivers somewhere, and are they good drivers that will work properly?

Comments

  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited April 2008
    There are no drivers for this laptop on the Dell website? XP won't have a specific sound or lan driver at the least, most certainly not a wireless driver.
  • EssoEsso Stockholm, Sweden
    edited April 2008
    Hi Tim,
    Check these threads
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=181150
    http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t52847.html

    You will need to slipstream Sata driver for the XP installation.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    I forgot to mention that the person uses wireless to connect to the internet, so making sure I have good wireless card drivers is life-and-death important here.

    Slipstream SATA driver? Huh? More info, please!
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited April 2008
    Slipstreaming drivers into XP means adding the drivers to automatically install during XP installation.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    Can I install the XP by itself first, and then add the drivers through a USB flash drive as needed? That's what I usually do on some computers, I wouldn't have the first clue about how to slipstream anything.
  • EssoEsso Stockholm, Sweden
    edited April 2008
    I have found out that some Dell Inspiron 1720 owners have struggle in 2007, to make the computer work with XP.

    I used google and "Dell Inspiron 1720 XP drivers".
    Some of the links will solve some of the problems you are facing.

    The system needes the SATA drivers during the installation.
    I don't know if Win-XP can handle drivers on the USB drive during the installation process.

    Slipstreaming SATA drivers is not that difficult.
    Why not slipstream the XP SP3 RC2 at the same time, you will save some there ....
    Use one CD-RW disk to test on.

    Youe will need ~2 GB partition to do it.
    As a matter of fact I'm gonna fix one XP CD today.

    Here is some useful links.

    Win-XP Service pack files:
    Windows XP Service Pack 2 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers (Size = 266 MB)

    Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 Refresh (Size = 315 MB)

    Major Geeks - Windows XP SP3 RC2 (Size = 315 MB)



    Slipstream
    Slipstreaming service packs
    Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
    Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Create Bootable CD

    How To: Slipstream your XP installation

    Do you still have to hit F6 and floppy install SATA drivers with WinXP-SP2 ?
    Your motherboards Users Guide will tell you if you need to copy SATA drivers to install during Windows installation or not.

    Note,
    I can't post the one link, because the link will be replace with **** :)
    You got in the PM box.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    I almost got a headache reading that article about how to slipstream stuff. I spent some time saying "Huh?" when told to do this or that or copy this to there and rename it this, etc.

    One of my Windows XP setup CDs is a SP2 CD, it should already have SATA drivers in it, if I use that it should at least be able to get the hard drive going, right?

    I looked at some laptop 160 GB SATA drives in Best Buy, and they say they are Vista / XP / 2000 compatible. From that, I assume the driver issue is somehow already taken care of?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    It does not have SATA drivers on it. You must slipstream them onto a new disc or provide a floppy with them during setup.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    Not to harp on the issue of "are you SURE it won't work?", but if I happened to have access to an original Dell XP SP2 cd that originally came with a Dell desktop system with a SATA hard drive in it, might that have the needed drivers?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    No.
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