Hi,
You can't install XP over Vista. The installation partition will have to be
removed and recreated, then formatted before installation can proceed due to
changes in the implementation of the file system (meaning you can't install
XP into an NTFS volume created and formatted by Vista even though it can
read it). This can be done as part of setup when the XP disk is booted, and
by the way all retail XP disks are bootable, even the "gold" ones, there
should be no reason to use floppies as long as the computer's BIOS supports
booting from an optical drive. If your SATA disk is not natively supported
in XP (and many weren't), you will need a driver on floppy to install during
setup regardless of the age of the disk.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts
http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
"Ender14" <Ender14@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2AEE66AE-928C-4229-AE6A-517772CB9CB6@microsoft.com...
>I am running Vista Home Premium 64bit. Due to compatibility issues and
>things
> just not working correctly, I want to replace Vista with XP Pro. When I
> put
> my XP disc in, the option to install XP is grayed out and I can't select
> it.
> Is there any way around this?
>
> My XP disc is so old it is not bootable, nor does it contain SP1. I would
> just wipe the hard drive and use the boot floppy discs I have, but I don't
> know if my antique version of XP will recognize my SATA hard drive.
>
> Any help is appreciated.