The HP G60-535DX is a nice and cheap notebook that ships with Windows 7 Home Premium. Unfortunately, the hardware for which I bought this notebook is not yet Windows 7 compatible, so an XP downgrade is necessary.
1 Answer
Installing XP on the G60-535DX was relatively painful. HP doesn't publish any XP drivers for this notebook, nor any specific model numbers of its components, and Windows Update only handled a couple of minor drivers, like the trackpad. Hopefully, this info will help someone facing the same task.
Use nLite to slipstream the Intel Matrix Storage Manager text mode drivers into a new Windows installation disc.
- This step is necessary to avoid a BSOD while starting the XP installer, because it doesn't support AHCI. This can be avoided in most other computers by changing the IDE/AHCI setting in the BIOS, but the G60-535DX's BIOS doesn't support the swap. Providing the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to the installer will allow it to access the hard disk via AHCI without a blue screen.
Download the Realtek ethernet drivers, e.g. from DriverPacks.net in the D\L\R3 directory
Download the Intel 5 Series/3400 Chipset drivers
Download the Mobile Intel GM45 Graphics drivers
Download the Atheros AR9285 Wireless drivers
- If the file doesn't automatically download, click the download button > View Source > get the .zip file from the headers
- You must select "I will select the driver to install" when installing, or Windows will not find it.
Download the Conexant HD Audio driver from Dell.
- Obtain the audio card's Hardware ID from the Device Manager
- Extract the Dell driver. Add the new ID to the driver's inf file, then install as usual