Installing XP on Dell Inspiron 1525

Okay, let me guess why you are here. You have been using some Vista version on your Dell Inspiron 1525 and you are not happy with Vista. You planned to use you weekend in installing windows xp but to your surprise your relatively new laptop does not recoganized your hard disk. Rather it is that your XP did not recoganize the hard disk. It lacks the drivers (or simply call it software). Now if you have used your favourite search (mine is google) to find the solution you will find a lot many option of making new XP disk image by injecting drivers into it. I don't know if it works but it did not work for me. I don't know how many CDs/DVDs I wasted making duplicate copies with new drivers for my Dell Inspiron 1525 supported hard disk drivers.

Now I opted for alternate route,
First Step :

1. Goto BIOS and disable AHCI mode for your SATA hard disk.
2. Install Windows XP with SP2 normally now.
3. Install required drivers normally you do for XP installation.
4. If any of your required XP drivers are missing they are easily available at Dell website.
5. Now real fun start when you want to switch back to a better mode ie. AHCI mode. Although I have not noticed much difference. Ok back to work. Copy and paste the below italic text in notepad and save as Dell_AHCI.reg and double click to enter setting into registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version
5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2829&cc_0106]"Service"="iaStor""ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]"Type"=dword:00000001"Start"=dword:00000000"Group"="SCSI
miniport""ErrorControl"=dword:00000001"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys""tag"=dword:00000019"DisplayName"="Intel
AHCI
Controller"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2821&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA""Count"=dword:00000001"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

Second Step
Copy the iaStor.sys-File into the \Windows\System32\Drivers\-Folder from Intel Matrix Storage Manager( download this from Dell website) for XP. File name should be IATA621_CD.EXE
Third Step
Restart the computer. Be ready to get into BIOS and switch back to AHCI mode. Save the setting and restart. The windows XP should load properly now in AHCI mode too.
Well this has worked for me and should work for you if you are using the said laptop. I have not tried on other models.