Dell XPS1330 Installing Windows XP (Part 2)

UPDATED, READ ON! The first part of this entry will focus on how to get Windows installed. As this laptop is running on SATA based hardisk, we will need to load the drivers into the installation disc so that it can get detected during the installation phase.

Read more at Installing XP on Acer Aspire 4310,4710 Part 1 This article serves the same purpose on preparing your XP disc with the SATA driver except you need to use this laptop’s driver (Download here) If the link is dead, go to Dell Official Download Page to search for SATA driver. Note, when you select the driver to include, just select all the items with the keyword ‘Mobile’ and ‘ACHI’. There are 3 items to be chosen. (Skip all ‘Desktop’ and ‘RAID’)

Steps to install new OS (applicable and tested working on XP and Vista)

1. Insert Media Direct 3 disc, choose either option 1 or 2 to prepare your hardisk. (Any option will do actually as you can edit your partition later during your OS installation)
2. Remove disc, reboot, insert your newly prepared OS installation disc.
3. Install it the usual way, you may edit the new partition created by Media Direct 3 disc earlier, but just don’t disturb the 2 GB partition reserved for Media Direct 3 installation later. If you do not want to have Media Direct 3 on your laptop, you may actually skip Step 1.
4. This step only for Vista. You need to install the chipset/sata driver before proceeding to install Media Direct 3.
5. This step only for installing Direct Media, skip if you do not want to. Insert Media Direct 3 disc while you are in windows. Just let it autoplay and finish up the installation. 5
6. For both XP and Vista, you may now proceed to install all the necessary device drivers. To get the latest official drivers, visit Dell.

Drivers (for windows XP)

1. Official driver for graphic card 8400M GS is not available at Dell Official Website, however, you may try using this. Updated! Tested Working!
2. Same thing go to the sound device, you may try this.
3. I’m not sure about bluetooth driver.
4. For the rest, get them at Dell website. At the end of the day, you will still be seeing few unknown devices in Device Manager and still wandering around what you have left out… I have no solution for them yet unfortunately. I’ll keep watching on this and keep you updated.

Updates!

Graphics card driver is working. Sound driver still not working. You will see three “System Base Device” at the Device Manager in XP, so do in Vista. I still have no idea what they are for though. As a conclusion, it lacks sound drivers only for using Windows XP.

Additional Info (Dual-booting)

Whatever you doing, dual boot or triple boot, keep them in between preparing hardisk (Step 1) and installing Media Direct (Step 5). Installing Media Direct is always the last thing you do after you finish installing all the operating systems.

Just added!

To dual-boot Vista and XP, make sure you install XP first, then only Vista to avoid nightmare doing booting configuration later. If you had installed Vista, follow the instructions below which I have tested working for me.

1. If you have installed Vista first, boot up from your XP disc like normal. Finish the installation like what you did normally. Then you will be able to boot into XP only everytime losing the ability to get into Vista.
2. Your Vista is presumably resides in drive C. Your XP is on drive D. Browse to drive C.
3. Now you need to move some files. First, make sure you have set your folder options to see hidden files and to show protected operating system files. Then open Windows Explorer and go to the drive where Vista is installed. Copy the folder Boot, and the files bootmgr, boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr and paste them to the root of your XP drive. (bootmgr,boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr all at the root of drive C, no need search further ya :p)
4. Install Vista Boot Pro. You need to have .Nt Framework 2.0 get the the program installed.
5. Open VistaBootPRO, ignore the prompt to backup your BCD. Go to the System Bootloader tab, select “Windows Vista Bootloader” in the first section and “All Drives” in the second section and then click Install Bootloader . Next, go to the Diagnostics item on the menu bar and select “Run Diagnostics”. VistaBootPRO will default back to the Manage OS Entries page and you will see that you now have entries there for “Earlier versions of Windows” as well as “Microsoft Windows Vista”.

Credits goes to s4baz prepare the Step 3 and grav!ty for Step 5.

See? Thats what you need to do if you have Vista pre-installed. To avoid all these, be wise, install XP first, Vista later. :p

Thats it! Happy messing with your laptop!

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