Downgrade your laptop to XP
As almost all portables come with Vista nowadays, many people are desperately trying to get XP up and running again on their latest purchase. To help you out I’ll explain how to prepare, install and configure your brand new toy (for me the Vaio VGN-NR21S) in this tutorial.
1. Vista installation and creating recovery DVD’s
When powering on your portable for the very first time, a Vista installation will start. Note that the installation files are hosted on a separated partition of the harddrive. Since there were no recovery DVD’s shipped with my Vaio I decided to configure my Vista (installation + removing all included software I don’t need except for the Sony backup/restore of course). Then created my recovery DVD’s (2 x 4,7gb) and after that erased the whole partition table.
2. Making a custom bootable XP CD with the SATA drivers we need
We’ll be needing a windows XP CD, the sata drivers for the motherboard (VGN-NR21S) and the nLite program to create our custom XP version.
First thing to do is copying the Windows XP CD contents to a folder on your hard drive. Then unpack your sata drivers (to a folder on your hard drive).
Now we install nLite and we’ll slipstream our sata drivers into the windows XP CD. Since maxEasyGuide already explained this process wonderfully you can check it out here and follow his step by step nLite slipstreaming tutorial.
3. Installing XP and configuring the drivers
Now we can boot up our CD we just created and the hard disk should be detected and ready to copy our installation files to. I prefer slicing up my hard drive into 2 partitions. The first one (c:) will host the OS (in this case XP) and enough space for some programs and virtual memory. For an XP I would advise 10 or 15gb (just tap in 10000 or 150000) depending on how many programs you’re planning to install. All the rest of the disc will be our second partition (d:) hosting all other data (standalone programs, pictures, documents, …). You’ll want to put all data on it you don’t want to lose when you perform a format c: and reinstall your OS.
After you completed the XP installation you will notice a lot of yellow question marks in the “Device Manager” (right-clicking on “my computer” -> tab “Hardware” -> click “device manager” button) under “other devices”.
These are devices that still require a driver to get them up and working. So here’s how you can find out what driver you need. Right click on one of those “other devices” in the list and choose properties. Then select the “details” and there you have a dropdown list. Selecting “hardware id’s” will give you a specific code to specify the vendor, developer, chip, … (ex.: VEN_1106&DEV_3059&SUBSYS_140117F2…)
Tapping this code in Google will give you an idea of what device this is and finding a driver is just about 2 minutes work. Either you search for it with Google or visit the manufacturer’s website for a driver download.
To save you a lot of work I already uploaded all drivers you’ll need to install the missing devices on a Vaio VGN-NR21S. Just unpack the rar files with Winrar or any other unrar tool and install those drivers.
4. Making a ghost image of our system (optional step)
Although this is an optional step, this might come in very handy the next time you’re planning on reinstalling your windows XP. As we now perfectly configured our system (maybe you’ll want to install programs you always use like Firefox, Office, Email client,… too) it’s time to make a backup.
The easy way to do this is getting a Hiren’s Bootdisk (very handy all-in-one cd!) and let your machine boot from it. Then start up Ghost (it’s under disc clone tools) and create a ghost image of the first partition (c:) and store it on the second partition (d:). You see why creating these two partitions is so important? If we had only one where would we store our backup? A USB storage device you say? Ok good luck finding the right drivers for it and make it work under dos, then maybe you’ll succeed 
Once the image is created, remove the Hiren’s bootdisk and start up windows again. You’re done! (or maybe you can even burn the ghost image to a DVD just to be sure)
Good luck everyone and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
