Vista Tutorial - Problems installing XP along with Vista!!??

hi everyone,
first of all, il explain what exactly i wanted to do with my laptop which is currently running a Vista Home Premium 32bit. I needed to install an 64bit ver of XP Pro on a 2nd partition and set it to dual boot. My laptop is a Fujitsu-Siemens and has a single WD 250GB Sata HD and my processor supports 64Bit OS. I followed the instructions on the forums on how to shrink a partition and create a new one for the second OS(XP). However, after going through the procedure i placed the XP disk in the tray and booted from it. It was loading just fine then suddenly after i press enter when i was asked to continue to install, it mentioned later that it could not detect any hard drive or that i need to disable any program or whatever. I figured maybe theres a setting in the bios but i found nothing i can do with the HD settings.

Im not familiar with Vista so i need to know is there any possiblility to install the XP OS. IF yes then id appreciate if somone can explain to me how.
Also, i was wondering if the manufacturer locked the HD and maybe the only way is to reformat the HD and reinstall everything.

Take a look at this article and see if it helps:How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide Guide to installing XP on a Vista computer and dualbooting

The problem is i dont have a copy of Vista on a CD. Mine came preinstalled as a OEM package with the laptop. And this guide doesnt show where and when you come across a problem where while installing an XP it mentions " no hard disk found".

You should of received some type of Vista disk for recovery and backup... if not I would check on that if possible. I don't have anything else that I can think of, very strange problem...

Sounds like you need to use the F6 option when first starting the install CD to install a SATA driver. The only problem with this is that you have a laptop and most likely no floppy drive which is all that XP will recognize, drive "A". The only way around this is integrate the SATA driver into your install CD.

I have read that some have used nLite to do this.

I have no experiance with this, it is only from reading that I suspect that this is the problem.

Unless there is more about this on this forum, Google may be your best choice.

hey thanks glatzfront
i guess your right about the Sata Driver as the laptop is using sata HD...however, i think it is most unlikely something to do with the driver as ive previously installed Xp easily on PC and laptops using sata...well i think il check up on google..and il update you on my findings...thnk again..

I posted on another board because XP Pro DID install on my laptop without using the F6 option and I didn't understand why. The explanation given after some "That's impossible" replies was that some chipsets deal with this better than others. Seems to make sense because some can install while others can't.

hey i understood what the problem is...and i resolved it using the software you mentioned nlite and sata drivers from the fujitsu siemens websiteforums. The thing is the drivers for sata hd are not available on the Windows Xp CD so all i had to do was add the drivers into the instalation package usig nlite.
Nlite is really simple to use too..didnt even need to go through a manual..
anyway loads of thnx to u 4 da hint...