How much space does XP need?

[severedsolo]

Can someone give me a ballpark figure? iv picked up a copy of XP from ebay for my parents computer (as they have lost the original disks and its borked to the point where only a format will do) but i want to test it on my machine first to check its not dodgy, can anyone remember roughly how much space i need to allocate to the new partition to get it on there?

edit: never mind i cant do a dual boot anyway dont have the right SATA drivers and no floppy disk drive

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

If your PC is set to AHCI you can set it to IDE before you boot the XP disk then set it back to AHCI after to boot back into Win 7.

The XP came on a floppy?

Here's a snip of the disk space of my fully patched 32-bit XP Pro SP3.

 

[severedsolo]

the disk starts, then just after "windows is starting setup" it bluescreens, i changed the HDD mode to SATA (dont have IDE im guessing their the same thing in this regard?) and slipstreamed the drivers into an iso but its still bluescreening

no the floppy bit was to do with the loading SATA drivers tutorial, but gregrocker supplied a link on how to slipstream them, still not working though

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

You don't have an AHCI option in the BIOS under something like "storage settings"?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html?ltr=A

 

[severedsolo]

under the Integrated Peripherals>HDD>AHCI bit of my BIOS i have 3 options, SATA, RAID, and AHCI, the default setting was AHCI, if i change it to SATA it still bluescreens and obviously RAID just refuses to work full stop because i dont have a raid array

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Do you have the BIOS set to "no restart on system failure" so you can view the error code.

 

[iseeuu]

You could install VirtualBox first, then XP in VirtualBox?

 

[severedsolo]

the error code is 0x00007B according to: Advanced troubleshooting for "Stop 0x0000007B" errors in Windows XP its to do with sata controllers, i downloaded the XP drivers directly from Nvidia, and no luck

 

[severedsolo]

thats not a bad idea iseeu i might do that later

 

[alphanumeric]

One option is to install Microsoft Virtual PC , which is free, and then install XP to a virtual disk. It will make removal a lot easier too when you want to get ride of it. If I remember correctly Virtual PC will select the proper size virtual drive for you.

EDIT: I forgot to ask the obvious, why do you think it may be dodgy? If it's not an official Microsoft CD then you got ripped off.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

You could install VirtualBox first, then XP in VirtualBox?

Just remember you will have to install a key about half way through the install or you will not be able to finish the install, it's not like Vista and W 7 where you can completely install first then add the key later. I found out the hard way.

 

[severedsolo]

right, decision made, ill VM it, and check it like that, anyone recommend a good VM program? not VM workstation it causes all sorts of issues on my rig

thanks for all your help guys, id Rep you if we werent in Chillout room

 

[iseeuu]

thats not a bad idea iseeu i might do that later

Sun's VirtualBox

If it is "buggy", you would have it in a "sand box"!

BTW here is one of my XP drive maps, using just less than 10GB:



Cheers!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I'm using Sun VB myself, it's very easy to set up.

 

[severedsolo]

BFK yeah its ok i know the key is genuine (its actually the original key that came with the PC) its just the disk came in a plain white disk sleeve (the seller told me that they had damaged the case) i just want to check its not malware ridden

ill give VB a try, cheers again everyone

 

[alphanumeric]

Give Microsoft Virtual PC a try, I've used it and never had any problems. I haven't tried it in windows 7 though. If it's XP sp3 you don't have to enter a product code, you can try it for 30 days without having to activate it.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

thanks guys,

BFK yeah its ok i know the key is genuine (its actually the original key that came with the PC) its just the disk came in a plain white disk sleeve (the seller told me that they had damaged the case) i just want to check its not malware ridden

Hey mate I wasn't saying that at all; I just wanted you to know that A key would have to be entered before the install would finish, the first time I tried XP I didn't have a key (with me) and I got stuck in a boot loop, what a mess.

 

[severedsolo]

Give Microsoft Virtual PC a try, I've used it and never had any problems. I haven't tried it in windows 7 though. If it's XP sp3 you don't have to enter a product code, you can try it for 30 days without having to activate it.

isnt virtual pc the thing you use to run XP mode? if so i cant use it as my processor is incompatible

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Give Microsoft Virtual PC a try, I've used it and never had any problems. I haven't tried it in windows 7 though. If it's XP sp3 you don't have to enter a product code, you can try it for 30 days without having to activate it.

That's not the experience I had, see my post above.

 

[whs]

In case you need some instruction, a while ago I wrote a little tutorial on how to deal with Virtual Box (which I recommend) and Virtual PC. You can download the PDF from here. It was written for Windows7 as a guest (the Beta at the time). But it works just as well for XP.
I recommend you allocate between 500MB to 1GB of RAM and 15 to 20GB of dynamic disk space( it will only use what it needs).