there seems to be some information here that might be useful
and I can't remember where but I am sure I saw something
somewhere in the l;ast couple of days of surfing about windows vista that
refferred to being able to go back to xp from vista - although not easy.
here's the link -
[url]http://sillydog.org/forum/sdt_12015.php[/url]

Peacepole1

"Todd" wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> "Nick Alzapiedi" <NickAlzapiedi@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:06359861-8307-4244-B43F-5F1974190511@microsoft.com...[color=green]
> > I don't want someone to say "I have no idea if this will work but try it[/color]
> and[color=green]
> > tell me what happens." Please, someone who used some method that worked
> > please tell me what to do. I am unable to reinstall XP from Vista, it[/color]
> won't[color=green]
> > let me. I can't restart my PC and boot from the CD because it's a DVD.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I did a clean install,[/color]
>
> Did you reformat the drive or partition that Windows XP was on and install
> Vista to that, or did you create a separate partiton for Vista and install
> Vista there? If you reformatted the drive or the partition that XP was on,
> then XP is gone and you will have to do a clean install to get it back.
>
> You say that you can create partitions. Did you create a partition for
> Vista? If you installed Vista in it's own partition, then what you have to
> do is fix boot manager/boot.ini so that it boots to XP, and then reformat
> the partition that Vista is on.
>
> In any case start by creating a partion and copying all your data there.
> Don't forget your Outlook Express/Windows Mail message store. Also back up
> to DVDs, just in case.
>
> Todd
>[color=green]
> >I have WINDOWS and Windows.old. Someone please help me
> > I have no sound and my settings are gone. I know someone must've fixed
> > theirs. I only have one PC so I can't remove my hard drive. I have over
> > 280GB of free space so I can do any partition. I have a Dell PC. So to
> > anyone who has successfully done it please tell me exactly what you did I
> > don't want to mess up my PC.[/color]
>
>
>[/color]