Windows Xp drivers for HP Pavilion Elite m9250f with IPIBL-LB (Benicia) Motherboard

Recently bought a HP Pavilion Elite m9250f

Configuration:

  • 64-bit Motherboard
  • Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz
  • 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM (Exp. Up To 8GB)
  • 1 TB (2 x 500) 7200 RPM SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 512MB
  • TV tuner card with FM tunerwith USB infrared remote for Media Center
  • 16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe SATA drive
  • Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g
  • Integrated 10/100/1000 Base-T networking interface
  • Realtek ALC 888S chipset up to 8 audio channels
  • Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit SP1

 

Details can be found on:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01374062&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=ca&product=3688702&os=2093&lang=en

The only downfall was that it came with  Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit SP1 which is useless for me since my work is Xp for client and 2003 for server based programming.

Getting it to downgrade was not an easy task. Took me around 24hrs of research and 24hrs on the machine itself to run Xp smoothly.

To make the task easier for brothers out there like me, here is everything in a nutshell.

First, You need to disable SATA from BIOS so that Xp can detect the hard drives by changing SATA1 Controller from AHCI to IDE.
For that you need to Press F10 when the computer boots up to enter BIOS.
When you are under BIOS, Go to Advanced and make sure the settings are:
SATA1 Controller: Enabled
SATA1 Controller Mode: IDE
SATA2 Controller Enabled

Then Save and Exit setup.

Now you can install Xp without any troubles.

Regarding drivers,
Here are the basic drivers for Windows Xp SP2: 

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/dotnetfx.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/MotherBoard.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/LAN.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Audio Driver.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Wireless LAN.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/TV Tuner.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Wireless KeyBoard Mouse.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Modem.exe (Did not work for me, worked for friend)

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Graphics Card.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Sm Bus Controlerl.rar

 

Driver Not Included/Found by me yet:

Infrared Reciever for Media Center Remote Control

Cause: The Infrared Remote is supported on on Windows Xp Media Center, which is based on Windows Xp Home Edition, So, Pro enthusiasts cannot achieve that.

For Media Center users, here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=b39d53f1-0ac9-433b-b488-4cab82f31dc8&displaylang=en

DO NOT TRY AND INSTALL THIS ON WINDOWS Xp PRO ELSE IT MAY CRASH.(Try booting from XP with "Last Known Good Configuration" if you did it anyways)

 

Finally!
Found the missing peice in the puzzle.
SATA Driver for installing Windows Xp without changing SATA1 Controller from AHCI to IDE.
The driver is ICH9R

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/f6flpy32_85.zip

In order to use this driver, either you need to plug external floppy drive, install internal floppy drive and provide the driver in the floppy by pressing F6 when Xp boots up.

Or slipstream Driver in Xp Cd  using nLite.

nLite:

  • Install Nlite
  • Insert your XP Disk into the cd drive
  • Run Nlite, it will ask you where your xp installation is. Chose the drive the XP disk is in, and it should recognise it.
  • Next, it will ask you where you would like to save your installation.
  • Next, Task Selection Screen should come up. Make sure you check Drivers, and Bootable ISO. I also like to check Unattended, so I have less work to do during the installation
  • Next, you have the chance to insert the SATA Driver. Click Insert > Single Driver. From the f6flpy32_85.zip, chose iaAHCI.inf, it will open up a screen of the contraining drivers. Select the Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller
  • Next, you have the options to change the default values of the XP install, you can pre-insert your serial number so you never have to type it in at installation, add desktop themes... you can toy around with some of the settings that you're familiar with at this point.
  • Next, it will build your install of windows. Click yes if it asks : do you want to start the process
  • Next, the final step. You have the option to either burn your install to a disk or write it as an image file.

 

DONE!!

 

Now you can install Xp without changing BIOS and you can DUAL BOOT with VISTA.

Tip:

For increasing performance, install Xp on a bare 5-10GB partition.(C:)

Using nLite, Select options to install folders like "Program Files", "Document and Settings" in different partition(D:)

leaving C: with only one folder "Windows"

This will boost the performance of your Windows to Max.

The partitions need to be setup and formatted before you install Xp or it will use the default (C:)

 

ENJOY!


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Categories: Hardware

Posted by pranay on August 29, 2008 08:38 34 Comments
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Comments

September 13. 2008 18:31

Thank you so much, i bought this computer for college, but my college uses XP you saved me from being worried that i wasted 1700 dollars

Trevor

September 14. 2008 22:40

Thank you very much for this, very appreciated. I have not received the computer yet and I am also not sure if I will risk myself but thank for easy explanation.

Steve

October 2. 2008 14:51

Thganks for all the work I didn't feel like doing.
I left the Vista Home on the computer and will dual boot hopefully.
I followed the install per this link which helped. forums11.itrc.hp.com/.../questionanswer.do

Mike

October 5. 2008 08:50

This is great, thanks for your help. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Do we need to install the XP 64 bit version or can we use the XP 32 bit?

Backe

October 5. 2008 10:16

Hi Pranay

Thank you so much for this post. I've been looking for weeks now to solve this installation problem. But now it worked.
Only had to switch off the SATA :-P

Thank you so much again!

Skar

October 9. 2008 04:08


This is great, thanks for your help. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Do we need to install the XP 64 bit version or can we use the XP 32 bit?

Backe


All the drivers in this blog are for Xp 32 Bit, for 64-bit Xp, I recommend doing more research, since 64-bit OS are still not compatible with many softwares. Given some 1-2years more, 64-bit would grip them all, and at that point Xp would have been completely taken over by Vista, and Vista would have been replaced by Windows 7. And since the desktop is top-of-the-line right now, it would be good for the coming 2years without any upgrades required.

pranay

October 14. 2008 22:25

Pranay, thanks for the tut, you've earned yourself a bookmark. I had to change the BIOS Config for the Harddrive to "IDE" and Windows is installing now. Hopefully it shall install the slipstreamed drivers and i will change it back to "RAID".

Coolnow

October 16. 2008 13:33

I have a 6600 series and I tried slip-streaming a WinXP CD using nLite, as well as the F6 method, without any result. However, I was able to install and run WinXP in SATA mode using a different method that didn't require either a floppy or burning another install CD...

Using IDE emulation, I installed XP, rebooted, installed Intel G33 chipset drivers (with SATA and PCIe support) , rebooted, and then updated the SATA driver using the iostor.inf/ioahci.inf files generated from the Intel Matrix setup executable once XP finally recognized the SATA controller on the mobo (IPIBL-LB).

HOWEVER, the trick was to set the bios to AHCI in order to boot as SATA once everything was finally set; I was having trouble trying to boot using RAID, and only had a single HD (500GB). Worked like a charm, and now I have a lightning-fast system!

Skippy

October 23. 2008 20:00

Holly crap, man!

I bought four of these systems for our xp based editing classroom and have been racking my brain trying to find support. You are the rockin'est!

Dan

October 26. 2008 07:41

You are NINJA! (:K

I've been (unsuccessfully) attempting to convert an HP w/ same motherboard for a week while successfully completing a half-dozen other shop projects and scrambling on-site support. I had almost given up on the downgrade for lack of drivers! And then I found your brilliant article posted here. I may sleep tonight!

Would you believe the ONLY driver setup I could get to work without error until now IS the HP-Vista32-based MODEM DRIVER (SP37564.exe)? If you still need it, e-mail me for the messy steps (3) I took to do this... none of my other driver attempts to port the Vista32 software worked. Now I am armed with a new batch of downloads, thanks to you, and ready for another round with XP device manager.

Thanks in advance!

Christoph / Mr. Cat PC

chri5toph

October 28. 2008 00:36

If you downgrade this machine to a 32 bit xp os, do you lose any performance? I have read that 32 bit os's only recognizes up to 3 gb of memory. Am I wrong? I would love to go to 32 bit os for compatibility concerns. The only concern is do you lose any hardware performance downgrading my m9250f to a 32 bit xp.

Brandt

October 31. 2008 01:16

Hey boys - if you weren't so dim-witted our friend Pranay
would not seem so smart. Learn tom use google and other s.e's.
It does wonders for your IQ's.

Julian Penrod

November 1. 2008 12:29

Yes, you are right, the 32-bit OS are low on memory than 64-bit and performance.
But since 64-bit is not yet fully supported by many Softwares, you won't be utilizing full capability of 64-bit anyways. So wait a year or two till 32-bit are outdated and 64-bit rules.
Till then, grab on to your Vista 64 that came pre-installed and just put it back on(recover) and enjoy a new speed. Oh and dont forget to Open your PC, throw the 4xGB RAM and replace it with 4x2GB RAM and see what the duo of 8GB and 64-bit and quad-core produce lightning fast performance. But till then, enjoy the same speed but with only Windows Xp on a 4GB.

pranay

November 10. 2008 13:50

Hi,
I have downgraded my pc from vista to xp with success, however, I am missing some drivers for the following devices:

1. Audio device on High Definition Audio Bus
2. Multimedia Video Controller
3. Beanbag Emulation device

Can you help?

Surj Jassal

November 14. 2008 20:57

Thanks man, you are a life saver! My dad bought a new PC, and it was loaded with Vista. So I decided to roll back to XP to spare myself the headaches. However the LAN card wasn't working. This guide did it for me Smile

Once again thanks Smile

Rami Taibah

November 15. 2008 21:33

Does anyone know if this information apply's to a m9260f? When I try to install XP I get a blue screen 00000007b.
fargodude

Dustin

November 20. 2008 06:25

November 14. 2008 20:33

Does anyone know if this information apply's to a m9260f? When I try to install XP I get a blue screen 00000007b.
fargodude

Dustin
Dustin,
I found that m9260f's Motherboard is same as m9250f.
So should be the SATA drivers. Do you get the blue screen errors in the setup before the step where you select your HDD to install Xp of before that? If is successfully showing your HDD in setup, there may be something wrong in Xp CD/DVD. Although if it is before that, you may have not slipstreamed the SATA drivers properly. I would recommend just going to BIOS and First, You need to disable SATA from BIOS by changing SATA1 Controller from AHCI to IDE. And then give it a try again.
Cheers!

pranay

November 20. 2008 07:14

November 9. 2008 12:50

Hi,
I have downgraded my pc from vista to xp with success, however, I am missing some drivers for the following devices:

1. Audio device on High Definition Audio Bus
2. Multimedia Video Controller
3. Beanbag Emulation device

Can you help?

Surj Jassal
Serj,
I am afraid it is not m9250f,
you would need to go to HP website or call them to know exact make and model of those and then download drivers individually.

pranay

November 23. 2008 05:05

Pranay, I was able to get most everything to work with the information you have presented here. Could not figure out the bean bag ir driver. Not real important though.

The blue screen was caused by being in RAID mode which was the default on my Vista x64 install.

Thanks for writing this up, because this is the ONLY good information on the internet that I could find on this topic.

Thanks,
Dustin

Dustin Rogne

November 27. 2008 11:17

Hi,

First of all I would like to thank you for the info provided; it was a great help.

Secondly, following your instruction I was able to install the XP, but I wanted to restore it to the factory default. The first error I have received was that the “ntldr” is missing and the second error was BIOHD-3.
The reason of restoring Vista was to be able to dual boot as specified with the nlite.
If anyone can direct me in a right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,
Nana

nana

November 27. 2008 14:13



November 26. 2008 15:17

Hi,

First of all I would like to thank you for the info provided; it was a great help.

Secondly, following your instruction I was able to install the XP, but I wanted to restore it to the factory default. The first error I have received was that the “ntldr” is missing and the second error was BIOHD-3.
The reason of restoring Vista was to be able to dual boot as specified with the nlite.
If anyone can direct me in a right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,
Nana

Nana,
Have you made sure that the BIOS Setting is back to AHCI or RAID(whichever was default).
And then try to restore Vista.
I have successfully restored vista twice on m9250f.
Have not tried dual boot-yet.
Also, you may face some problems trying to install Windows Xp over Vista in dual boot.
Check out some fix for that as well.
All the best!
Hope you share your experience with us.

Thanks,
Pranay

pranay

December 1. 2008 01:07

You saved my life. Thank you, very much!

Freequ

December 2. 2008 22:44

Hi Pranay

I have an HP Pavilion Elite m9200t, Motherboard ASUS: IPIBL-LB, HP: Benicia-GL8E, Chipset: Intel G33 Express. I've installed your drivers, however, I receive Network Cable Unplugged” and yellow ? for USB DEVICE. Any help would be great.

Thanks Paul

Paul

December 3. 2008 11:59

2 Dec 2008

HI Pranay

Thanks for the Serial ATA driver to install XP PRO.
I have a HP Pavilion Elite m9200t, with an Asus IPIBL-LB Benicia-GL8E motherboard, Intel G33 chipset, and Realtek 8111C 10/100/1000 Mb/s (Gigabit Ethernet) Integrated LAN. Have installed all your drivers, however, received “Network Cable Unplugged” error for Realtek, and a yellow ? for a USB Device. Any advice would be great.

Paul

Paul

December 9. 2008 12:45

How do I install the LAN driver from the rar? I was able to install the wireless LAN but I do not know how to use the files in the rar.

Thanks!

Liudude

December 11. 2008 23:13

December 8. 2008 22:45

How do I install the LAN driver from the rar? I was able to install the wireless LAN but I do not know how to use the files in the rar.

Thanks!

Liudude

Liudude,
You need to go to your device manager.(Start->Run->(type devmgmt.msc)->OK)
There you will see some yellow question marks icon.
Find the one for your Ethernet.
Double click on it
Choose "Install from a list or specific location(Advanced)
Check "Include this location in Search"
Select browse and select the folder where you unziped the rar file.
Next Next Next....
You're done.

pranay

December 19. 2008 12:45

hey, this trick worked great. only one problem. the card reader f'd up my drive letter and named local disk I: instead of C. how do i fix this?

dan

December 19. 2008 13:36

hey, this worked great, only the card reader f'd things up. my local disc is labeled I: instead of C:. and all the card reader slots go from c-h. any way i can fix this?

dan

December 20. 2008 19:48

Hi Paraney

pls tell me that I have m9280 s..o can i use these drivers for my pc?
if not if u don't mine pls can u find it for me? i need xp for my works..
not vista..it sucks..

thx in advance.

Gazaly

January 5. 2009 06:46

Thanks for this post .

overnat

January 20. 2009 12:31

Here's a tip for users with other/later HP models:

Your SATA controller driver may not necessarily be the one listed here. Check Device Manager in Vista to get your actual driver name. Then try to match that with your choices when you slipstream. I actually found the best match for my driver in the other .inf file.

Found out the hard way after slipstreaming with the first file, only to find XP would still not load. Didn't want to switch BIOS to IDE because I was going to dual-boot Vista (and Vista wouldn't load under IDE).

Nate

February 4. 2009 06:42

Hey this worked great...But there is an yellow exclamation mark on the PCI device. How can I install this device.

chaitanya

February 5. 2009 22:09

Hey Pranay,

I just bought my M9250f ($299+S/H) and after some dancing around I am able to triple boot: XP, Windows 7 and OSX. Anyway your post made the process of installing XP relatively unpainless. Thanks!

Manolo

February 6. 2009 10:03

Feb. 6. 2009
Dear Pranay! Thank you for your support. I can not express how much I appreciate your help. I wasted so much time until I found your site – everything was done in minutes than. I still have a little problem – I can not find a driver for the wireless network module –“Atheros 802.1 a/b/g/h dual band. The Hp – model what I have is: Pavilion Elite m9510f – motherboard: Asus IPIBL-LB or HP name: Benicia-GL8E.
Sincerely Johann

Ps. Please excuse my bad English – I am an Austrian – my native language is German.

Johann Mirlak

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