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.

Mumbai Attacked

Yet again.. yet again... India has been attacked.. Mumbai has been attacked. Its painful to see again and again people going through all this. I agree with Mr. Ratan Tata, in last 25 years we are still incapable to handle these situations. How easier for these morons to enter the the mega city and fires gun shots randomly. For these exigencies policemen were carrying lathis to handle these "equipped guys". How easy it is to plan such events in India !!

Just watching these footage on news channels I was wondering where are the politicians who ideologies which are region centric. Maharashtra is attacked .. Mumbai is attacked.. India is attacked.

Cable television was disconnected in these hotels so that terrorists are disconnected from outside world. But I want to know why Internet connectivity was still on. If guests in hotels can access them why not terrorists. Isn't it a lapse ?

Yahoo Login Service Is Down

Well I don't know how many user across the globe felt a yahoo login service failure. It was quite evident around 11:00 AM London time when I was unable to login into few of my yahoo accounts. Be sure I was not using invalid username and password. Just within couple of minutes the service was restored. I think yahoo might update on why this has happened. No update as of now.

Update ( 30-Jan-2008 ) : There has been an another such outrage from yahoo. The user are unable to login into any services from yahoo including popular chat,mail and flickr accounts. This time it has lasted more than 5 minutes. It started around 04:45 AM London time. There is also a small change in the user interface of login screen. The sign-in seal show "Are you protected ?".



Update (30-Jan-2008) : Its almost more than half an hour and yahoo login services are still down. I am not sure about premium ( paid ) services. I have tried almost 20 times but I am unable to login. If I am not wrong yahoo usually block the account after few unsuccessful attempts. But there is no such warning. I tried to recover my password by providing my credit card information but it gave a programming exception ( FEATURE_ERROR_USER_OPEN_NO_ACCESS ). Well hold one if you thought it is happening with all yahoo id's then surprisingly its not. I have tested it on few other id's, a couple of them were found to be working fine and there was no exception error even if I tried to recover password ( though I don't have to as I was able to login ).