I have a new notebook that came with Vista, and have entertained the idea of
backing up the complete system, formatting, and then installing XP, with the
thought that I'll probably get a considerable performance boost, not to
mention losing the small irritations and nags that are constant with Vista.
(I'm not a Vista hater, just don't really need the glitz or the "do you
really want to..." screens, besides the occasional software that doesn't
work with it). Plus, I think a 2 GB machine with this processor should fly
with XP, and it's only so-so with Vista. If I change my mind, I'll have the
disk imaged so I can go back to Vista.

But the hard drive is SATA, and there is no floppy drive. As far as I
remember, the floppy is the only possibility for adding the SATA drivers
during XP setup, and I'm not even sure if it would recognize a USB floppy if
I were to buy one specifically for that purpose. Any suggestions,
workarounds, etc. would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary