I have a Gateway MX8715 laptop that came installed with Vista. I was ok with it until a few weeks back I keep getting the sporadic blue screens and shutdowns on the machine. After 5 days of trying to figure out how to resolve it - I made the decision to purchase Windows XP and just install it on this computer and not deal with Vista anymore. I chose to go the dual boot route in case I changed my mind and followed all the online instructions and got it to work including finding all the XP drivers. However, when I did the 2 drives, the one that had the XP on it was too small and in a daring move I decided to try and reformat the drives and start all over.......and then the problems began!

I can definitely install Vista with no problem but when I try to go back and add XP like I did before - I get the "A DISK READ ERROR OCCURRED. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart" and the computer just hangs. I can install the Vista disc and go through the repair startup mode and then it boots up to Vista again but can't get it to boot into XP and to be honest I am not entirely sure that it actually installed again. I am a newbie to this and really am unsure what to do now and hoping someone can help me......

I would do a boot nuke. Download the Darik's Boot and Nuke iso from here http://downloads.sourceforge.net/dban/dban...mp;big_mirror=0 and burn it. boot up computer to the disk and type autonuke. This will clean out the entire drive, it might take a day to do it all. But it writes 3 layers of 0's. That has resolved some disk read errors I have had. It should let you install fresh and clean after it finishes.