Downgrade Vista Laptop to Xp

[nokiafan05]

I just got a Acer Extensa 5620 and it came with Vista premium. I figured I would try it out and give it a shot. Now I'm having issues with programs not working with it and now it tells me I cannot use hotmail in it's email program. Who knows what other issues will pop up. I noticed it's a sata hard drive. I've been reading that Xp doesn't recognize sata drives. How do I go about removing vista and putting on Windows Xp on the Laptop ? Can I use my Usb drive to load drivers on it ? The mobo does support usb drive booting. I have a option in the bios.

[Lespaul20]

I'd verify that you have XP drivers for everything before considering moving to XP.

[nokiafan05]

Far as I can tell the Acer site has Xp drivers.

http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm?website=AcerPanAm.com/canada&siteid=7297&areaid=17&formid=3394#results

I read somewhere that someone got xp on the same laptop with no problems. However he didn't mention how he did it. That and there are site/people online selling these with Xp pro already on them. Heck even the Acer website recommends Xp pro.

http://www.acer.com.au/acer/akc/portablepc.nsf/Page/RWP195DC9C7C3A59097CA257361006EEF39

[trulad]

Do as Acer says and burn a restore disk, then wipe the hard drive clean and delete the restore partition,giving you much more space. Then install XP as usual. You then have the original restore disk if you want to go to Vista when they have drivers available for your setup. I did this to both of my Acers and Acer has all of the XP drivers on their web site. I also burned them to a cd for faster access in the future.
trulad

[VonBSD]

I have an Acer Extensa 5620 and I was able to downgrade following the post
link below. The only thing that I'm having trouble getting to work is the Realtek
HD audio driver. I'm running WinXP Pro (SP3) so if you figure out how to get
it to work on your notebook, let me know.

CharredPC (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=190581)

[nokiafan05]

I have an Acer Extensa 5620 and I was able to downgrade following the post
link below. The only thing that I'm having trouble getting to work is the Realtek
HD audio driver. I'm running WinXP Pro (SP3) so if you figure out how to get
it to work on your notebook, let me know.

CharredPC (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=190581)

I have realtek Hd Audio on my Desktop pc so the drivers should in theory work for the laptop as well.

[nokiafan05]

I successfully put Xp on the laptop and I have install all the drivers.

[VonBSD]

I have the Extensa 5620-6830 and I can't get the modem or the audio driver to work.
Under Device Manger, it still shows the PCI Device with an exclamation mark.

I've loaded these two files:
Foxconn Conexant Modem Driver Ver. 7.62.0.0
Realtek Audio Driver Ver. 5.10.0.5423

Neither one helps my situation.
I've tried other Realtek Audio drivers to no avail.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[VonBSD]

****************UPDATE******************
I got it FIXED, YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I now have sound

I found the hot fix from Microsoft here:
http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/arc.../11/81540.aspx
The download is under the picture.
KB835221.exe (QFE to fix the "Microsoft Bus" error message)

The KB888111.exe for SP2 didn't work for me since it's for SP2

The KB835221.exe states SP1 BUT it worked for my SP3!

The modem also now loads correctly.

[nokiafan05]

Doesn't it feel good to have Xp vs Vista on the laptop ?