it can be done but will have to download the drivers from the chipset manufacturers like intel, realtek & conexant. had to do that for 4 laptops with vista installed when upgrading to xp.
AS long as you have a windows xp cd you can reformat the computer. Usually xp will find all the drivers for you. If you have everything connected when you do the reformat it should do it automatically. If it doesn't find a driver then download driver detective, this program will find any driver that you may need and download it for you, for free. It is a very nice program.
gorrik, the drivers has to be part of xp disk for windows to load the drivers. it didn't find the drivers for my new motherboard which i had to load after windows was installed.
Just a note, an XP format find's no driver's for me, can't even access the internet to get them. Never used it but this free program sound's good and should get them for you first: http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/
Well my xp disk i have is a student edition and ive used it for everything, a few computers (custom built), and my laptop, and it has always found the drivers even to my wireless mouse and my wireless network adapters, and without the internet. The cd may just have all of them already. The only problems with drivers ive ever had is with xp 64-bit, and i had to search for third party drivers.
depends on the age of the pc's & laptops plus the sp version of xp. i have the pro sp2 version of xp & did not load any drivers for my new motherboard on a fresh install. i've done multiple hundreds of computers so know from experience.