Possible change from Media Center to XP Pro?

[CrazyCow]

Recently bought the beautiful notebook AR 11B but having big problems changing the operation system from Windows Media Center to Windows XP Professional. Hopefully someone could help me work this out (the swedish telephone support had no clue).
The notebook has a 100 gb SATA harddrive and here comes the first problem: Win XP does not recognize SATA discs (a message during the installation says the harddrive can't be found).
To install the SATA drivers the easiest way is to use a floppy drive (pressing F6 in the beginning of the installation) but since I had none I did a slipstream (unattended installation) with the SATA drivers and my Win XP Pro CD.
Now Win XP finds the harddrive and I'm also able to both partition and format the drive. After the first part of the installation (first reboot) I don't get any further though, since a bluescreen appears with the message: stop 0x0000007b. After this I cant do nothing but turning off the computer.
This bluescreen message normally occurs when some driver are missing or not properly installed but since I use the original drivers from the laptop I have no idea why this happens (the drivers in the folder c:/drivers).
The drivers I’ve been using in the slipstream are Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M).

I’ve found a post on this forum treating more or less this issue (http://www.club-vaio.com/clubvaio/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=34092) but with no solution.
My opinion is that everyone has the right to change the operation system but this time Sony made it really, really hard for us that are trying!
Any suggestions?

[KingGeorge]

Crazycow,
Bencogo made a good point: why try to install windows XP pro? Windows XP MCI is equivalent to that, plus some extra features. Some of them are indeed redundant, but some are handy as well. I spent an hour myself uninstalling unnecessary crap.

Though I must admit that I'm a bit scared myself of having these trouble with SATA when I want to format my harddisk. I do this every 3 months so maybe in a couple of weeks you guys might just help ME out
I was planning to try installing one of those leaked copies of Mac OSX, but I think that will have trouble with that SATA big time.

Good luck!

[KyriakosP]

I can see the hard disk after i load the SATA drivers using F6.. the problem then is rise when the drivers had to be copied to the hard disk... Even if the drivers from the Diskette are loaded when the installation had to copy those drivers to the HDD fails...

[CrazyCow]

Bencogo made a good point: why try to install windows XP pro?  Windows XP MCI is equivalent to that, plus some extra features.  Some of them are indeed redundant, but some are handy as well. 

Must say I really find this a stupid comment. I don't care wether MCE would be the best system in the world - that is not the point! The point is that I want the freedom to do whatever I want with my computer. For me it's a big restriction that I can't install the system I prefer.

KyriakosP - In which exact moment of the installation does the HDD fails? You're saying you find the harddrive with F6 installation but then when the drivers are copied the error message appears? So you get the error message before the "format/partition"-part of the installation process? If so I still believe the problem is the drivers.
I ordered a floppy drive, when I recieve it I will try installing the drivers like you did. I'm still convinced you're doing something wrong since I managed to get through this first step of the installation.

[kee-lo_]

I don't think anyone was trying to say otherwise, but Windows XP Media Centre is just XP Pro + Media Centre components.

[Aeivan]

I'd have to agree with King George and Kee-Lo!
Why put yourself through the headache of rebuilding your system with the identical o/s that it already has loaded?
(Yes - I know there is at least one minor difference between xp pro and mce - but my guess is you aren't going to notice. Mce essentially IS xp pro.)

If you're wanting to speed up boot time, and unclutter the system a bit, just spend some time removing all the stuff you don't want insetad?

[KyriakosP]

KyriakosP - In which exact moment of the installation does the HDD fails? You're saying you find the harddrive with F6 installation but then when the drivers are copied the error message appears? So you get the error message before the "format/partition"-part of the installation process? If so I still believe the problem is the drivers. 

i don't remember exactly but i rememeber for sure that i can partition kai and format the HDD... then the following step it to install the windows system files i don;t remember if it's before that or after that.. but for sure is after the partitioning phase...

[KyriakosP]

I don't think anyone was trying to say otherwise, but Windows XP Media Centre is just XP Pro + Media Centre components.

I'd have to agree with King George and Kee-Lo!
Why put yourself through the headache of rebuilding your system with the identical o/s that it already has loaded?
(Yes - I know there is at least one minor difference between xp pro and mce - but my guess is you aren't going to notice. Mce essentially IS xp pro.)

If you're wanting to speed up boot time, and unclutter the system a bit, just spend some time removing all the stuff you don't want insetad?.

For me it's not just replacing Windows MCE to PRO... but building my own system with the programs i want..

Firstly i don;t like Norton Internet Security... the first day i bought the laptop i've unistalled all the useless programs and installed Panda Internet Security. That was the first mistake after that explorer.exe was having problems and the pc won't boot up..
( i have also opened up a case with support on that day with no luck same questions same answers)

Winamp has problems with the SonicStage Audio Filter.. filters when played mp3 from winamp are aplied whenever you change song (one by one)

When i recover my pc google toolbar has also problems when opening pages.

Besides that with a good registry cleaner after the recovery process on the first boot you will find more that 1000 empy keys and invalid registry entries...

Also with all the Sony utilities including antivirus suite etc. the commit charge on Ram is approximately 700MB... on other laptops without all these utilities is about 500MB (including antivirus suite).

I hope you all understand that is not just replacing the system for me but the only thing i want is to make it a lot cleaner a faster.. i don;t mind if i install pro or MCE.. MCE are better either ways i just need a system that behaves the way i want and as it should

[kee-lo_]

The best thing you can do is collect all the drivers you'll need - making sure you have the Sony Utilities.

[KingGeorge]

Must say I really find this a stupid comment. I don't care wether MCE would be the best system in the world - that is not the point! The point is that I want the freedom to do whatever I want with my computer. For me it's a big restriction that I can't install the system I prefer..

Sorry my dear, just trying to help by giving my opinion - we are on a forum after all...
You might not have known about the equivalence of MCE and pro. I myself kwew about the trouble everyone seems to have with the drivers and utilities provided by sony, AND about the trouble with sata drives... That's why I think it's not worth the effort for an operating system that is only slightly different.

But still, you are right, you should be able to tune your PC just the way you want, and have these trouble sucks...

[Matricks]

I also wanted this change for two reasons:
1. my MCE was in French and I couldn't find a patch for changing the OS language (the vaio-link refference isn't valid)
2. the bundeled appz are pain in the ....head
So, after a long struggle I managed to <<stick>> the SATA drivers in a XP Pro Installation CD and the system seemed to install OK. In the end when the install was done and it should reboot....it got frozen instead. After I gave it a <<full 5 sec restart press>> the instalation was a success (except two permanent blocks in <<preparing to sleep>> and <<preparing to hibernate>>). But. since I got my vaio yesterday...I won't call it a day.
So....CrazyCow ... it is obvious we won't give up.
my yahoo ID> matricksx