I'm having a laptop, HP Compaq nx 7300- with Intel Core duo 2 processer, 1 GBRAM, 72 GB HDD[partitioned as 3 - 49 GB C: drive, 1.55 GB OS tools & balance free F: drive]. In C: drive Windows Vista Home Basic is pre-installed. I wanted to install Windows XP Home instead of Vista I Repartitioned, converted HDD to FAT file system from NTFS & formated my entire HDD using fdisk & format command of freedos OS But when I tried to install Windows XP, the setup shows a message, which was, "No HDD is installed or powered on properly. This may be due to running of Manufacture owned Hard disk uility. Set up cannot continue. Press F3 to quit." Actually what is the problem ? can any body help me? Please Ajay

why didn't you just use the xp disk to format, partition or whatever?? why freedos??

I could be wrong, but doesn't free dos format as FAT16?? If this is the case then the drive will not be recognized. I believe it has to be FAT32 or NTFS. You can download the free 30 day trial if BOOTitNG which has a utility to format as FAT32. Download, put it on disk, then boot up with it. When it asks you to install, press NO and you will go into maintenance mode. From here select Partition work. It will allow you to partition and format. There is an option there to format as NTFS... do not use this option. It only sets the disk up for NTFS format for XP. Instead choose the FAT32 format. And yes, it will allow you to format FAT32 bigger than 32gig (unlike XP).

Find out the make of your HDD, then go to the manufacturer's website & download their software. It will allow you to format partitions larger than 32GB as FAT32 (the XP CD will not) & you can also customize the cluster size. You may wanna have a look at the Ultimate Boot CD: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ It's kinda late now, but you should have double checked that all the necessary device drivers are available. You're gonna need the chipset, video, sound, network, wireless, etc drivers. FLATURIN - Hand-to-mouth goodness. It's good!

Actually XP may not recognise the SATA/IDE Controller Chipset, you may need to supply the drivers on a Floppy Disk F6 method.

Thanks for ur reply. If I prefer to Install Windows XP on my external harddisk & Vista on my laptop HDD, use as dual boot. Does it work? please reply. Ajay

Absolutely not................