Need to replace Vista with XP on a dual-boot laptop
 

I know, I know it sounds funny as hell but I still need XP for certain things. The machine came with Vista pre-installed and I had to uninstall then install Kubuntu, re-install Vista then use EasyBCD to rewrite the boot config. I gave Beasta a chance but it just plain sux @$$. DX 10 is bogging down my system and machine is really over-heating. Another really odd thing though Kubuntu hangs at shut down (weird). Anybody know how I'd go about this?

You didn't mention the brand or model of laptop, but if it is a new system you should check with the manufacturers website to see if WinXP drivers are available. I have noticed that a lot of the new systems shipping with Vista do not have WinXP drivers available at all.

Sony, Acer, HP, and Toshiba are all guilty of this with their newest models. If your laptop was sold with WinXP at one time you should be OK, but owners of some of the brand new models might be out of luck as far as moving back to XP.

Bob

It's an Acer Aspire 5100 with 1 GB RAM, 5 in 1 card-reader, 120 GB HDD and Vista pre-installed. Didn't have much problems with
linux except for Beryl not running, card reader not working, and not shutting down anymore. Most of this is not a big deal B/C it's only a matter of time b4 they release some updates and....
I'm concerned about GRUB. Am I going to have problems with it after the XP install? What's going to happen to my boot config then?

I have an Acer with same problem. In the "tech notes" at Acer on flashing the BIOS,they mention a jumper on the mainboard that controls the "Boot Guard". It's location and function remain a mystery. I'm hunting a MoBo manual but so far no luck.

Anyone:confused:

Installing WinXP will kill Grub and make linux temporarily unavailable, but you will not have really killed it. After installing XP and all the many updates, just boot your Kubuntu CD and select the recovery option. Go though the steps and you should be given an option to install or recover the Grub boot loader. This should restore grub to the MBR and give you the option to boot both OS's. You might then need to edit the menu.1st file to properly identify WinXP and the version of Windows.

I recently did this to install Vista in place of WinXP with Ubuntu installed as the second OS, and everything worked fine for me. Good luck!

Bob