How to downgrade to XP on Satellite Pro L 300

Question

I have read conflicting methods for downgrading to XP. This should have been put into the manual
Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere (I couldn't find it if it was)
1. Vista will automatically set up when you turn on the laptop
2. Use 'create a recovery disc' for Vista just in case you want to reuse Vista (2 DVD discs will be made - you need 2 x 4.7G blanks)
3 You can run this twice so that you have 2 copies of 2 discs for keeping in separate locations
NOTE: You CAN'T run this after you install XP (You can NEVER can go back to VISTA without repurchasing it)
4. Back up hard drive if necessary as HDD will be overwritten (eg. Acronis True Image)
5. Insert number 1 XP recovery disc (supplied with laptop) into DVD tray
6. Turn on computer and hold down F12 key to go into Toshiba boot menu and select CD/DVD
(NOTE: booting can't be done from F2 - BIOS)
7. Options box comes up warning of overwriting
8. Go through menus pages to:
9. 'restore back to box' - if you want XP and don't have a 3rd party disc partioner (eg. Acronis Disc Director)
If you don't have a disc partitioner use this item ONLY - (NOT item 11.)
10. 'restore leaving partions as is' - this would be if you have previously partioned HDD - overwrites partion 'C'
11. 'restore with size of partion 'C' nominated' - ONLY use if you have a 3rd party disc partioner
If you use this it will split the HDD into 2 partitions, 'C' and 'unallocated'. You would split into 2 ONLY if you have a
disc partitioner and want to split the HDD into 'C' drive (or 2 'C' drives) eg. 40 GB for operating system & programs and into 'G' drive for data
This is for backing up if you have to reinstall windows to 'C' drive. A tip here is when downloading programs save to a folder eg "EXE"
on your data drive. If you reinstall windows you can copy the "EXE" folder to 'C' drive and run the program exe's to reinstall these programs.
You could also copy these and save seperatly on a disk
NOTE: you cannot see or access 'unallocated' space, so if you select this without a disc partitioner you are theoretically
reducing the size of your HDD. There is NO OPTION to undo/redo this if you reinsert the XP disc so make sure you have a disc partitioner handy.
12. You will be asked to swap discs after 1st disc has finished reading - put in disc 2
13. Goes into normal XP mode - country, language, time - these can be skipped and done later but you might as well do now
14. Once you get to XP screen laptop will go into a 'search for driver / shutdown' repeat loop.
15. Be patient here as it does it about 3 times. It seems like it in an endless shutdown loop but will eventually stop at the XP screen
16. If you have a disc partitioner program and have split your HDD into 2 partitions install the program and go into 'create new partion'
Here you can select the 'unallocated partition' and change it to a 'logical partition' in NTFS (XP mode) for data with it's own drive name eg 'G'.
You can also do things like have 2 active 'C' partitions (1 hidden) if you want to have Vista & XP on the one HDD
Note: Both VISTA & XP have the same Key so you can only have them both on the HDD if you do it the way above (16.). However you would
need to do it in a different sequence. Leave VISTA as is, use the disc partitioner first to split the HDD into seperate partitions, hide VISTA
and then go through to installing XP. You would then hide/un hide OS's to use either. Probably not worth the trouble on a laptop
Things you DON'T have to do:
17. DON'T go into BIOS (F2) - machine will still run XP on AHCI without streamlining drivers - no need to swap to 'COMPATIBLE' mode
18. DON'T look for any drivers - this will be done automatically
19. The VISTA / XP key doesn't need to be known / nominated during the install
20. The 1.5 GB hidden partition on the HDD is not overwritten
Hope this is some help to others
Ray

Answer 1

Hi mate!
Thank you very much for this fantastic posting!
I noticed many threads about the downgrades to Win XP and there are always many questions and confusion.
I hope that this will help others here in the forum.
Well done!