***DISCLAIMER*** I am in no way affiliated with Dell, Microsoft, or any other technology vendor whose software or hardware are involved in running XP on the m1530. I'm not even a computer professional, and make no guarantees about the comprehensiveness of these drivers, etc. or the ease of successfully installing and configuring XP. That said, these are all files I needed on the way to getting my notebook stable, and some took me a while to dig up -- so I hope it is still a useful resource for others to have all of these files, links, and tips available in one place. I will try to be available when necessary for quick advice or other help, but can not promise any technical or moral support in liberating your laptop from the crushing grip of Vista:P But I can assure you that my notebook is running XP perfectly, so with these files and a little patience I'm sure yours will too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- My m1530 arrived within a week of ordering, despite Dell's anticipated delivery timeframe of 2-3 weeks. So hopefully you'll be surprised with an early delivery too. I was hoping for the LCD to launch with the first high-res screens...and of course would've loved the Penryn if I'd waited to order, so I bet you'll love your setup too. I think you'll also enjoy the unboxing:) I played around with Vista for a couple days before I was ready to install XP. Vista did look beautiful, but was a pain to figure out how to use -- and I've done a lot of manual config on both PCs and Macs, so I couldn't believe how user-unfriendly it was. As a backup, I saved an image of the entire hard disk with all partitions before removing Vista. I ordered my OEM copy of XP Pro from http://www.viosoftware.com/ (in case you haven't bought/downloaded a copy yet, it was a good deal for the legit license...and came with a free copy of Roxio Creator for taking a buyer satisfaction survey). Don't forget XP SP3 will be out this month, so assuming it doesn't have any crazy issues on launch, XP will getting even smoother. I also imaged the XP install as soon as it was fully stable with all the drivers, etc, using Acronis True Image Home (fully-functional free trial version included in the software section of this resource). It's a big file, but is a good program for imaging, partitioning, virtual drive mounting, recovery, etc. As far as the Media Direct, I believe I just reformatted the partition that had Vista and put on XP. Although I don't remember for certain whether I reformatted just that one or all partitions other than the MediaDirect one. The MediaDirect CD said to install it before an OS, so I'd guess that it would take care of creating its partition even if you'd cleared the entire hard disk. But I think I remember that even between wiping Vista and installing XP I could still boot into MediaDirect, and it still works...so leave that partition. Oh...one tricky and frustrating part about the XP install was that the BIOS didn't have native SATA support, so the XP install wouldn't recognize the drive til loading the SATA software. I found a tutorial that shows how to use a program called nLite to copy the XP install disc files, insert the SATA drivers for during XP Install initialization, and then rewrite the XP Installer with the SATA files onto a new CD. This would be a simple boot off floppy, but without an internal floppy or native BIOS usb support, it's a tricky workaround. But I found the page that says how to use nLite...so just use that to make a new copy of the XP CD for yourself with the SATA stuff and it'll work. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. Especially after finding a copy of Audigy MB for XP to use with the serial number from the Vista Creative CD that shipped with my laptop. That said, if you download PSP Video 7 (or a more current version), or try to find a hacked copy of imTOO DVD to MPEG Converter, you can save DVD video as DivX (.avi) or MP4 to play with less battery drain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- btw, there are lots of drivers, so I found that just going through the Device Manage, and updating the drivers for the ones with the ! sign )with all the driver files on a CD) until all the drivers were working helped. You'll probably have to go back and forth with the drivers vs. audigy software for the soundcard, but should you have issues there are tutorials on the net. Also, I'm sure the SATA drivers are there, but not 100% certain I IDed them right to label and sort the files for you. Before you begin the install, I suggest you find the XP SATA drivers people use for the m1530 or m1330, and save them...then add them to the XP install with nLite to slipstream them into the XP install like I said in the last e-mail. I should've taken notes on what order I did stuff, but was in an excited hurry to get the system up. Still, it only took me a couple days total, and that was without being able to anticipate the SATA, Audigy, and other issues. So with my head start, I'm sure it'll be cool for you too. Let me know if you have any issues and hopefully I can help. But if you have a backup PC to access the net while your m1530 is down for the OS upgrade, you won't have any trouble.