I have been trying to make a dual boot laptop, with Windows 11 (x64) and as a secondary OS a Windows XP (x86). I have ran into several problems, but most of them got fixed. So currently, I have Windows 11 on my laptop’s SSD (laptop: Dell Latitude E5470, SSD: sk hynix 512GB). I have made sure to install it as an MBR drive. Now the SSD has 2 partitions, 25GB for XP should be enough.
Now here comes the problem. Windows XP’s installer can’t access the SSD. I have read here and in so many places that I have to slipstream the AHCI drivers in to the installer, which I have did many times by now, but it still has the same problem. BSOD with code A5, or if I had pressed F7 earlier then 7B.
I have been working on this for the last 4 days, and I don’t know what to do anymore…
@Xerfix
Welcome to the Win-Raid Forum!
The realisation of your idea is not easy and in my eyes not a good idea at all, because
a) the old OS Windows XP cannot handle modern hardware (needs some hex code cracked drivers) and
b) the performance of the Win11 partition will suffer from the dual-boot system.
By the way:
The A5 and 7B BSODs have different causes. The A5 one is caused by a the not maching XP in-box ACPI driver, whereas the 7B BSOD indicates, that the installed OS Image containes a wrong/not matching textmode driver (required for the detection of the target drive for the XP installation).
You forgot to mention the data transfer protocol (NVMe or SATA?), which is used by the M.2 SSD of your system. If you are not sure about it, you can find it out by running the Device Manager of Win11 and expanding the sections “Storage Controllers” and/or “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers”.
Nevertheless I wish you good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
a) The only problem is I have to use older Windows’, I don’t know if I can use Windows 7 (x86) for the old software.
b) I don’t mind 11 suffering performance, this laptop is used mostly for specific software only.
I don’t know about it being NVMe/SATA, I will check it out later, and maybe find some drivers for it.
It seems that I have an NVMe SSD. I tried installing Windows 10 (x86), and it also just gives me BSOD during installation, so I looks like 32 bit systems do need these drivers. At least I know the problem, now I have to look for a fix
The BSOD you got has another reason and is not the proof, that your M.2 SSD uses the NVMe protocol.
All modern Windows Operation Systems from Win10 up (x86 and x64 ones) have matching generic 32/64bit MS AHCI and NVMe drivers in-the-box. So you will only get a BSOD, if you have integrated or loaded a wrong (not matching) SATA or NVMe driver.
By the way - to be able to boot off an NVMe SSD you have to install the OS in UEFI mode. Only the Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD is bootable in Legacy mode (using the MBR).
I tried a clean Windows 10 install, BSOD says “dump stornvme.sys”, but it detects the NVMe at least. It looks like I have something that is too new :D.
If I try to install in UEFI mode it doesn’t even detect the pendrive I’m trying to install from.
