I'm actually helping a friend with this issue. She just got this Laptop

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16834117724

And we are trying to downgrade it to XP (She needs XP for work)

In the comments people stated they succesfully downgraded it to Windows XP.

However, we can not find the sata driver for this machine. Sony's website has nothing, and I cant find enough tech specs to really go for anything else other than it's an Intel Sata Chip Set.

What I did find however is a set of Intel drivers that work for

- Intel® 82801IR/IO SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 82801IR/IO SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® 82801HEM SATA RAID I/O Controller
- Intel® 82801HBM SATA AHCI I/O Controller
- Intel® 82801HR/HH/HO SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 82801HR/HH/HO SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® 631xESB/632xESB SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 631xESB/632xESB SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® 82801GHM SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® 82801GR SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 82801GR SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® 82801GH SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® 82801GH SATA AHCI Controller

However she is not awake yet to test them out.

So can anyone shed some insight onto this issue and if the drivers I found will work?

Thanks,

Eric

I can't be to sure but there is a good chance those are the correct drivers. I know a lot of people who slipstream their own installation cd using a program called nlite.

It basically loads your Windows XP image from your cd, then allows you to integrate driver packages into it like the sata ones you need. Then when you insert the cd to install, all is well.

There are no specific sata drivers via the sony website for your machine, so it'd be a safe bet to assume those intel ones are. You really can't go wrong here because if the sata drivers are not the right ones when you attempt to install xp no hard drive will be available in the list of hard drives able to install xp to.

Download those drivers, attempt to slipstream them (info can be found here http://www.nliteos.com/ )

Or download those drivers, extract them if applicable, burn them to cd, and perhaps you can hit the F6 key during boot from the xp cd and it will allow you to load the drivers from that cd you burned.

Others may have more information for you.

PS: You will want to also burn these or put these following drivers on a usb flash drive as you will need them to install upon the fresh xp install once completed... I recommend using the ones I list below from the sony site as opposed to any you have on a cd that came with the sony as the ones from the site will be more updated.


Mouse pad drivers (not necessary for mousepad to work but necessary for scrolling and any advanced items with the mousepad)
ftp://download.sony.com/US/pc/ALDOTH-14627500-US.EXE

Realtek® High Definition Audio Driver
ftp://download.sony.com/US/pc/REDAUD-14486700-US.EXE

Marvell® Yukon Ethernet Controller
ftp://download.sony.com/US/pc/MRDETH-14530500-US.EXE

Intel® PRO/Wireless Network Connection Driver
ftp://download.sony.com/US/pc/INDWLL-13984300-US.EXE

Texas Instruments™ PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
ftp://download.sony.com/US/pc/TIDMSC-13254300-US.EXE

This post has been edited by AitrusSkyy: Oct 3 2008, 07:01 AM