Blue screen when adding XP to Win7-64, change drive settings?

[river251]

I run win7-64 and need to install XP. I made a space, and booted from the XP CD. After it loaded files, when starting, it crashed. I read on a forum I need to set the drive to compatibility mode (called legacy in my setup). It warns my OS may not boot.

What should I do? I'm afraid to change the drive setting and have Win7 not boot. But I need to get XP working. I do have two drives. Second is a backup, I could install XP on that, and set the second drive to legacy, and leave my primary drive's current settings.

Thought I'd get some advice before taking the dive.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Arc]

Look at your BIOS .... storage controller .... what is the mode it is set? IDE or AHCI?

 

[river251]

Look at your BIOS .... storage controller .... what is the mode it is set? IDE or AHCI?

Hi Arc, thanks a lot for the reply.

There are four options in the bios:

Sata Operation

1. RAID Autodetect/ACHI
2. RAID Autodetect/ATA
3. RAID On
4. Legacy

It is currently set to 3, RAID On. This was set when the OS was installed.

Should I change it?

Thanks again,
Jim

 

[river251]

Also, it seems whatever mode I select, it is a single setting for the machine, so I can not leave the C: drive set to RAID On, while setting the B: drive to Legacy and . I am afraid to set the machine to Legacy when it warns me it may not boot Win7 any more. In fact I'm afraid to change it at all.

But it occurs to me, maybe whatever happens, I can always go to setup (F2) and just change the settings back, so maybe it's safe to try different options, knowing that if it does not boot, I can just change it back to RAID On, and be back to my current state.

Sheesh, wish Microsoft would make this easier.

Thanks again,
Jim

 

[Arc]

To install XP, you need to set it to ATA mode, which may make windows 7 not bootable.

Best you get https://www.virtualbox.org/ and install XP in a virtual machine.

 

[river251]

To install XP, you need to set it to ATA mode, which may make windows 7 not bootable.

Best you get https://www.virtualbox.org/ and install XP in a virtual machine.

I'll check that out, thanks a lot.

Jim

 

[daveybops]

In your BIOS, change your setting back to however it was for Win7, boot up, visit the fixit site from Microsoft (address below), run the fix, shutdown, boot into BIOS, change the setting back so XP may boot, and next time you boot into Win7, the system will reconfigure the SATA connection and boot OK.

Error message occurs after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive

 

[river251]

In your BIOS, change your setting back to however it was for Win7, boot up, visit the fixit site from Microsoft (address below), run the fix, shutdown, boot into BIOS,



change the setting back so XP may boot, and next time you boot into Win7, the system will reconfigure the SATA connection and boot OK.

Error message occurs after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive

Thanks Daveybops. To make sure I'm clear, when you say "change the setting back so XP may boot" what do you mean? I have never set it so XP can boot, and I have not installed XP because what is happening is that when the XP installer tries to boot XP from the CD, I get the blue screen.

So there are the four options I mentioned above. Which one should I select when I try to install XP?
And when XP install successfully, it leaves you in XP. At that point I should restart, and if I understand you correctly, when I restart I will see a choice of starting in XP or Win7? And I should choose Win7, and then Win7 will reconfigure the SATA options (how? to one of the four options above?), and it will boot into win7 just fine. then whenever I restart I will see two options (win7 and XP) and can always boot into either?

The fix you linked describes a problem where there is an error after setting your SATA but I have not done this yet; I am getting the blue screen when I try to boot the XP installer.

Thanks for any clarifications. I need to completely understand before I start doing things.

Thanks
Jim

 

[daveybops]

Hi, sorry, I had made a couple of assumptions, mainly that you had got as far as installing XP.

Step one - preparation - download and install nLite in case you need to customise your XP

installation media. Have the HD space prepared for your XP installation. Identify the SATA

controller on your motherboard and download the pre-install driver (commonly called the F6

driver). And if you didn't get a Windows 7 disk with your PC, create a Windows 7 recovery disk

(feature to do this is built into Windows 7).

Step two, install XP

Problems you may face installing XP - you may find that the installation just will not see your

hard disks, or it may bluescreen before it has loaded the base drivers for the installation

process.

Solution one: go into the BIOS and change the SATA setting to legacy (but before hand, apply the

fix I have mentioned in the last post to your existing Win7 installation).

Solution two: find the driver for XP for your SATA AHCI/RAID controller on your motherboard. This

driver must be either placed on a floppy disk (and you press F6 during the start of the

installation process to make the installer look to the floppydisk for the driver), or streamlined

into your Windows XP installation CD with something called nLite. This procedure will require you

to copy all data from the CD to HD, run the app to fit the driver in and make a new bootable ISO,

and burn the results.

Be aware that you may not have to change the setting in the BIOS and you may not have to add an

extra driver. It may just work. But it probably won't. You may even have to do both.

Step three, notice how by installing XP, it has over-written the Windows 7 boot-loader. Insert

the Windows 7 recovery disk and let it run automatic repairs. At the end, it will have created a

new boot-loader with Windows 7 and "an earlier version of Windows" options to boot.

Sounds like fun??