Hi.. I am unable to install Windows XP in my system using the bootable cd. When i insert the cd, restart and press any key the first message comes- 'setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration'. But after that the screen goes blank and nothing happens. I have currently installed Vista in my system but want to switch to XP. I cant try to install XP from inside Vista as Vista is the newer version. Please tell me how i can install XP in my system.

The screen going blank and not allowing you to install XP may be a blessing. The problem with reverting back to XP from Vista is the drivers. Depending on what hardware your machine came with, the xp drivers may not exist for your current configuration. I would check with Lenovo support before doing anything to the machine, especially if it's under warranty.

May be my observationi is very basic... in general progression is allowed ie. upgrading from Win 2k to XP to Vista is natural and so there wont be normally any stoppage. Having felt let down with Vista, I tried the same way on lenovo T61 recently but it didnt allow to downgrade to XP on the same partition. So if you have the drive already partitioned, you can copy the CD content to one of the partitions and try installing from it.

Actually the problem is not related to Vista. Earlier i had XP in my system, n while trying to format the system i faced the problem (of the blank screen). After that i had installed Vista. Is it possible that there is some problem in the hardware configuration in my system? If yes how to deal with that?

First of all you better make sure that ALL the needed drivers are available for WinXP. That very well could be a problem with a new laptop. The wireless LAN and the HD sound seem to be the most problematic. That said, if you can collect all the needed drivers I suggest you burn them to a CDR for use after your do get the basic WinXP install up and working. You may not have any internet at that point. The method needed to install WinXP is to remove the Vista installation. DO NOT remove the restore partition because at some point you may want to restore Vista. The other issue is that WinXP has no native support for SATA controllers. So, you may need to slipstream the necessary drivers into your WinXP CD. If you are attempting to use a CD from an OEM computer, like a Dell, etc, that will not work. Those CDs are keyed to the motherboard of the system they came with. If you have a FULL version of WinXP it MUST have at least SP1 integrated into the CD in order to install to a hard drive larger than 127GB. That restriction is in addition to the issue of the SATA controller drivers mentioned above. There may be more ground to cover but you should first respond to ALL the points raised here.

if you are willing to overwrite everything on your hard drive, the cleanest way to load xp given your symptoms is to: Download your winxp wireless and winxp ethernet lan drivers from lenovo, then burn them to CD or a usb drive. Next delete all partitions on your hard drive, set up one new partition, and format it. Do this by using the bootable partition manager of your choice. After that, you will probably not get that error message when setting up xp.