Installing XP on Lenovo X61s with Vista

Objective: The Lenovo X61s laptop came with Microsoft Vista OS. Now I want to format the hard disk drive, create new partitions, and install Microsoft Windows XP.

Problem: If you try to boot from the XP installation CD it does not recognize the hard disk drive.

Why the problem? : The hard disk drive on the laptop is SATA. After reading on the internet it turns out that the SATA hard disk drive is not recognized by the XP installation CD.

Solution which worked for me: You can surely browse the internet and can find other options, for e.g. the F6 option. But here is what I did. At startup I entered the Bios settings and locate the SATA option. It has two choices, AHCI mode and compatibility mode. The AHCI mode was selected. I changed it to compatibility mode. I have no idea what AHCI or compatibility mode means or for that matter what SATA means. But switching to the compatibility mode allowed the XP installation CD to recognize the disk drive and it did the installation. Its all up and running now.

How about the drivers ? Lenovo did not send drivers or programs CD's. So the easy and fast option was to downaload the XP drivers for X61s from their website.

Got all the programs ? Well besides the DVD burning software, the other programs (ThinkVantage programs) are available through Lenovo's website. Will have to buy the DVD burning software I guess. Or maybe call Lenovo and ask them for the CD.

So what about that SATA options in Bios ? Well, I have to confirm from some reliable source but reading on the internet it seems that the AHCI mode has some advantages. But I have doubts if they really make any difference for an average PC user.

A word of caution : If after you install XP you switch the SATA setting back to AHCI mode Windows will not startup. You will receive (atleast I did) the Windows blue screen with some error message.

See also the post "Update: Installing XP on Lenovo X61s with Vista"