E6410 Owner's Thread

[GoodBytes]

Has anyone been able to successfully do a fresh install of Windows XP in AHCI mode with BIOS A03? I always get a stop error with 0x0000007B. I have a 2nd E6410 running in AHCI mode with BIOS A01 with no problems doing a fresh install of XP.

I called Dell support and they told me to put it in ATA, which isn't what I'm looking for.

XP doesn't support SATA natively. This means that SATA controllers goes under "Safe Mode"... also known as "IDE" or "ATA", meaning it's slower. Installing the motherboard drivers can sometime (depending on the controller) have hot-swapable eSATA work under XP, but it's usually iffy.

A trick to have AHCI in XP is to do teh following:
1- Get a floppy diskette
2- Get a floppy drive and connect it to your computer
3- Put the SATA drivers on the floppy.
4- Boot Windows XP Setup, and press F6 during the blue loading screen.. it will flash "Press F6 to install additional drivers" The delay is based on your CPU speed. Faster your CPU, the faster it will appear and disappear.
5- Load the SATA driver from your floppy.

From my knowledge XP setup only supports floppy to load drivers. USB keys and disk are not supported. I don't know if that changed in XP SP2 disk... I have XP SP1 disk, and that is what I had to do, until Vista was released and form there really enjoy my high-end (at the time) PC, with it's multi-core treading OS, 64-bit support, SATA support, PCI-Express native support... ahh I remember the speed increase I got from my system.. it was nice.

[MDR8850]

ah... .you're installing xp on a 6410 machine..... geez...... i think the ones who created the 6410 doesn't have xp in mind as the main os....

i think installing win7 pro + win xp mode would be a practical solution ;-)

[GoodBytes]

ah... .you're installing xp on a 6410 machine..... geez...... i think the ones who created the 6410 doesn't have xp in mind as the main os....

i think installing win7 pro + win xp mode would be a practical solution ;-)

some people and companies never learn... it's not me that is bombarded with problems, doesn't take full advantage of my hardware or have monumental security issues. And people wonder how come I have such great experience with my systems.

[alex2364]

ah... .you're installing xp on a 6410 machine..... geez...... i think the ones who created the 6410 doesn't have xp in mind as the main os....

i think installing win7 pro + win xp mode would be a practical solution ;-)

This laptop isn't for me. I'm in the IT department for my company and it's actually for our CEO. I don't want our CEO to be testing Windows 7 x64 when we've barely done any testing on our systems. I have a 2nd E6410 and I installed Windows 7 right away.

[alex2364]

XP doesn't support SATA natively. This means that SATA controllers goes under "Safe Mode"... also known as "IDE" or "ATA", meaning it's slower. Installing the motherboard drivers can sometime (depending on the controller) have hot-swapable eSATA work under XP, but it's usually iffy.

A trick to have AHCI in XP is to do teh following:
1- Get a floppy diskette
2- Get a floppy drive and connect it to your computer
3- Put the SATA drivers on the floppy.
4- Boot Windows XP Setup, and press F6 during the blue loading screen.. it will flash "Press F6 to install additional drivers" The delay is based on your CPU speed. Faster your CPU, the faster it will appear and disappear.
5- Load the SATA driver from your floppy.

From my knowledge XP setup only supports floppy to load drivers. USB keys and disk are not supported. I don't know if that changed in XP SP2 disk... I have XP SP1 disk, and that is what I had to do, until Vista was released and form there really enjoy my high-end (at the time) PC, with it's multi-core treading OS, 64-bit support, SATA support, PCI-Express native support... ahh I remember the speed increase I got from my system.. it was nice.

Thanks. I think I've tried this already. I have a XP SP3 disk and it was able to load SATA drivers from a USB drive, but I'm still getting the stop error. I'm wondering if it's actually a hardware problem because I installed XP on a 2nd E6410 in AHCI mode just fine with no additional drivers needed. I swapped hard drive into the one I'm having problems with, and it won't boot at all. I'm getting the stop error in the 1st E6410, but as soon as I swap the hard drive back into the 2nd E6410, it boots just fine.

[GoodBytes]

Thanks. I think I've tried this already. I have a XP SP3 disk and it was able to load SATA drivers from a USB drive, but I'm still getting the stop error. I'm wondering if it's actually a hardware problem because I installed XP on a 2nd E6410 in AHCI mode just fine with no additional drivers needed. I swapped hard drive into the one I'm having problems with, and it won't boot at all. I'm getting the stop error in the 1st E6410, but as soon as I swap the hard drive back into the 2nd E6410, it boots just fine.

Ah good to know about XP SP3 disk.
Anyway, yea I out of ideas, so I guess it's a faulty motherboard.

[John Ratsey]

I would use nLite to slipstream all the E6410 XP drivers (and XP patches / updates) into the standard XP installation CD.

John

[derekd]

Has anyone been able to successfully do a fresh install of Windows XP in AHCI mode with BIOS A03? I always get a stop error with 0x0000007B. I have a 2nd E6410 running in AHCI mode with BIOS A01 with no problems doing a fresh install of XP.

I called Dell support and they told me to put it in ATA, which isn't what I'm looking for.

Your stop error probably also say INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE... Does it boot when putting it into ATA mode? If so you can load the driver and then flip it back...

[johnsto]

I've always owned XPS m1220 & M1330 laptops and have been very happy with them. I have just taken delivery of a new E6410 laptop with the highest specs available (on the UK Dell site Over totalling over £2000).

Apart from the screen issue you mentioned, how are you finding the e6410 compared to the m1330?

The e6410 seems like the most natural upgrade path for m1330 owners like myself who've seen their nVidia GPU die, but don't want to turn to AMD/ATI just yet!

[shaunspp5]

Apart from the screen issue you mentioned, how are you finding the e6410 compared to the m1330?

The e6410 seems like the most natural upgrade path for m1330 owners like myself who've seen their nVidia GPU die, but don't want to turn to AMD/ATI just yet!

Well sadly my new very expensive E6410 is sitting in the corner of my office and Ive got the old M1330 on my knee right now! I can write a detailed review of it shortly when I use it properly, but initially there is just something that's stopping me using it. The weight difference is the killer so far. My M1330 has the massive 9 cell battery in it and my E6410 has just a 6cell and the E6410 is substantially heavier! I'll weigh them both later and let you know what the actual weights are. I do really like the backlit keyboard though, I wish they could have that on the M1330, but for typing I prefer the M1330.

The specs of my M1330 are much lower than the new laptop. Intel T8100 2.1ghz, 4gb ddr2, 256gb SSD, 128mb Nvidia and XP Pro - Verses i7 2.6Ghz, 4Gb DDR3, 256GB SSD, 512Mb nVidia (Plus the top everything else) BUT that said, the M1330 still seams to run quicker than the new laptop which confuses the hell out of me.

Please note I don't play games so I can't comment on graphics in that context and its a fresh install of XP pro on both, not the Dell bloated install.

Sorry this isn't a very factual or helpful comparison, more just my own feelings lol
Shaun