Downgrading to Windows XP on an Asus F3S Laptop

Another big change for me in December was the migration from a desktop to a laptop. I got myself an Asus notebook--no, not a snazzy Eee PC which is pretty cool and has a fun name, to boot. Rather, my laptop is blandly called "F3SA-A1" but is definitely better-suited to my work.

Very soon after the new computer arrived I smoked the dreaded Vista and installed XP instead. The process was a little painful as I had to find a lot of the drivers myself. Unfortunately, I can't detail the process here as it was a while ago but I have saved some links that I found useful during the Windows downgrade.

Asus F9S Review and XP Installation Guide by ra990

Provides links to a lot of drivers that can be used for the F3S Series notebooks, too.

An old-timer's guide to installing Windows XP

This is a guide for downgrading from Vista to Windows XP. Some parts are specific to ASUS notebooks and I especially like the 'big cleanup' section in this one.

Something else to look out for: if you've got SATA hard drives then the Windows XP installer might not recognize your hard drive. This is because the installation CD doesn't come with any SATA drivers on it. If you have a floppy disk you can just put the drivers on there and press F6 when the installer asks if you have additional drivers you'd like to load. However, like many laptops, mine doesn't have a floppy drive. Some articles suggest using nLite to burn a new Windows XP CD with the SATA drivers included but this might be overkill. Before taking this relatively long route, fire up the BIOS on your computer and see if you can change the hard drive setting from SATA to IDE. If so, reboot and the Windows XP installation should detect your hard drive so you can proceed with the installation normally.

Hope this helps some one!