Dave-H

Just in case anyone was wondering why I've gone quiet for a while, it's because I'm working off-thread with George King on a Windows XP installation package for (relatively) modern machines like this. There are still a lot of issues with it, at least on my machine, but if I can get a new clean XP install that's as functional as it can be, I'll then know what the intrinsic limitations actually are, eliminating anything that's just being caused by me using an existing and already much modified installation. Where we are at the moment, I'm beginning to think that the only answer to getting all the hardware properly recognised by XP is a modified BIOS, as long as that doesn't break Windows 10! Cheers, Dave.

Sorry, I should have said. I can't see any mention of devices like that in Windows 10's Device Manager.

Been trying a few graphics drivers today. I'm sure nobody will be surprised to hear that I didn't get anywhere! I found a couple which did recognise the hardware and did install, but they all produced the "device can't start" Code 10 message.

Yes there is a touchscreen which works fine on Windows 10. I'm not holding out any hope of it ever working on XP though! Fortunately I have now managed to sort out the mouse, and it's now working on the other USB2 port where I want it. I found that in the list of generic "Human Interface Devices" listed in the Device Manager there was one that if the driver was updated manually from a list, the list included a "HID compliant mouse". I selected that and installed it, and the mouse now works! There was an equivalent entry for a "HID compliant keyboard too" which I also installed. So, we're getting there! The machine is still not performing at its best on XP as it's only using one processor core, and there is still no sound, but it's now pretty usable.

LOL! Just to bore you all with the history, the reason I have these machines is that I like to have a physically small and light unit that I can carry around easily when I'm away. Those 10.5" screen models all fit nicely in my shoulder bag! The problem with most of those small netbooks/notebooks is they were very quickly superseded by tablets, so they were never really developed into anything more than very basic computers. Almost all of them are very underpowered for anything other than very basic use. The first two Asus EeePCs I had were at least proper miniature Intel based laptop computers, with easily changeable external batteries and things like disk activity lights. The second one could be upgraded to 4GB of memory, which helped it a lot, as did fitting an SSD of course. They were designed for Windows 7, and didn't have high enough resolution screens for Windows 8/8.1 to work properly. I managed to upgrade to Windows 8 and then 8.1, but a lot of the apps wouldn't work, they just crashed the graphics driver, and those that did work needed a registry hack to fool them into thinking it was a 768 screen instead of a 600 screen, but they looked blurry and distorted. No hope of getting Windows 10 to work. That's why I then went for the third Asus machine, the AMD based one. That had a touch screen and supported Windows 8.1 and 10. It was fixed memory (fortunately 4GB was fitted) but was really crawling slow. The problem was the rubbish processor. Eventually I got so annoyed with it every time I tried to use it, that I looked again for an alternative which was the right size, and still had a conventional HDD or SSD so I could transplant my drive yet again, and came across the Lenovo Flex 10. I'm actually very pleased with it, it performs a huge amount better on Windows 10 than the last Asus machine did, and the other two performed on Windows 8.1. It's missing some things that the Asus machines had, like an Ethernet port and SD card slot, and only two USB ports instead of three, but I can live with that. The touchpad is dreadful, even worse than the ones on the Asus machines, and they were bad enough, but as long as I can use a mouse that's fine. I do think this machine will be my last as far as small netbooks go, which is why I'm anxious to get everything I can out of it! Cheers, Dave.

@Dietmar Just a thought. You said you never got a graphics driver to work on the Flex 10 with XP. Did you ever try the Intel 3600 driver? That seems to be a basic generic Intel graphics driver. I got that to work on the two Asus EeePCs I had with Atom processors. It was quite basic, no hardware acceleration for instance, but it would drive the HDMI port, and was much better than the Microsoft basic driver. I couldn't use it on my last Asus notebook as that was AMD based, but I'm hopeful that it might work on the Flex 10 as that is Intel. That's the last thing though after i've got everything else working as much as possible!

Thanks @Dietmar! Good to hear from somebody who has first hand experience of this! If you have a version of the BIOS that will solve this that's brilliant. Do remember that I want to dual boot with Windows 10 though. If your modified BIOS version will make Windows 10 unusable that's no good for me I'm afraid. I'm puzzled that you say that the original BIOS prevented Windows 8 from running on the machine, because surely it was originally designed for Windows 8?

OK, I've found the problem with the mouse! The machine has two physical USB ports, one of which is USB2 only, the other is also USB3 capable. I've now discovered that the mouse works in the USB3 port, but not in the USB2 port (which is one one I want to use it with of course!) When I finally tried plugging the dongle into the USB3 port, it found all the drivers and works fine. It does appear as a keyboard as well as a mouse, but that's not unexpected from what I've read. I installed the drivers manually, I didn't let them install automatically, and on one driver there was the choice to load a mouse or a generic device. I chose the mouse, and it then completed the drivers and worked. Unfortunately I can see no way of forcing that when it's plugged into the other port, as it doesn't appear in the mouse section of Device Manager. I've tested with other devices, and all the other devices work correctly whichever port they're plugged into, so this is a bit of a mystery! At least I can now use the mouse, although it's not ideal as it's a waste of the USB3 port as it's not a USB3 device. I have tried all the versions of acpi.sys in the Integrator folder. None of the earlier ones worked, just producing various flavours of BSOD, but the last few do all work. None give any more functionality though. I'm now using the latest one. There are no less that 13 devices recorded in the System Event Log as having no IRQs available in the BIOS. I guess the sound hardware must be one of them as there's no trace of it anywhere. Another oddity is that I have the last XP version of Malwarebytes Premium installed on the machine, and this has suddenly started malfunctioning too. I'm positive that it was working a couple of days ago, so I don't know what's happened there either. The Exploit Protection isn't switched on, and won't switch on. There are two identical errors in the System Event Log which say that the Anti-Exploit service failed start "A device attached to the system is not functioning." So, yet another ACPI-related problem?

Not Bluetooth, it's just the usual cheap wireless USB dongle. It worked fine in XP on the previous three (!) netbooks I've had, and is fine on Windows 10 now of course. There are no setting relevant to keyboard or mouse in the BIOS setup, apart from one to set the mode of the F keys (to set whether you have to press the "Fn" button with them or not.) I don't have a wireless keyboard I'm afraid.

Thanks, I will give that a try once I've done a few more tests with the machine as it is, and done a new ISO backup. I'm working through the alternative versions or acpi.sys in the Integrator, so far none of the others have worked at all, all producing BSODs or one sort or another. If the one I'm using proves to be the best, I'd still like to do a full new install just to see what final result it produces. It may well be that it will never be possible to get all the hardware installed properly with XP, but that's the only way to know for sure. I'm really in awe of the XP Integral Edition BTW, what an amazing piece of work by its creator! My main annoyance now with the machine as it is is that I can't get my wireless mouse to work. It's appearing as a keyboard, but not as a mouse! I gather that the dongles used by these devices do often appear as a keyboard as well as a mouse, as they can be used for either, but mine's appearing only as a keyboard. As the touchpad on the machine, even with the correct driver, is physically one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever used on a computer, I really need that mouse working!

OK, I've now restored the ISO backup of the machine, so it's back to booting and running fast in AHCI mode. However it's not using the Multiprocessor HAL, so it's only using one core of the processor, and there are some other issues too. I'm not too worried about the missing core, it's fast enough for my purposes, but there are a large number of errors in the Windows System log saying there are no IRQs available for a large number of devices. I guess this is an ACPI problem still. I guess this is why the sound hardware has gone AWOL, as well as some other things. I'm now going to experiment with the different versions of acpi.sys from the Integrator, to see if any of them give more functionality.

OK, I've made the ISO, with the options 1, 3, 4, and 5 as specified by @Damnation, and burnt it to a CD. When I boot from it, it loads everything, and when it gets to "Setup is Starting Windows" it produces the "Inaccessible Boot Device " 7B BSOD. It does that with the BIOS set to ACHI and Compatible mode. I've tried pressing F6 to load a mass storage driver, and I'm getting this. If I press "S" it wants a driver from a floppy disk (!) Needless to say, that's not an option! Pressing "Enter" just produces the BSOD again of course. So, what now?

Thanks @Damnationand @Rod Steel. I had overlooked the fact that I had a modified ISO to install which will hopefully work where the standard install CD won't! I will certainly now give it a try. I wasn't wilfully ignoring the original advice to do that I promise, I just wanted to explore all other options first, which I have now exhausted I think! If this installs and works OK, that will prove that it is possible for XP to work fully on the machine. I'll then have to decide whether to just use that installation or to try again to get my existing installation to work, which surely must be possible if the modified ISO works. Lenovo certainly haven't made some things easy. The first thing I found on the machine when I tried to put the network card from my previous machine into the Flex 10 as it's much better than the one already in it, was that Lenovo won't allow you to use any network card that they haven't whitelisted in the BIOS, so the machine wouldn't even start up with the replacement card in it! Why manufacturers feel the need to do things like that is a great mystery to me, what does it matter to them what network card you use once the machine is out of warranty? Anyway, I will try with the modified ISO and report that. Thank you all for your patience with me! Cheers, Dave.

OK, I tried doing a new install from a Windows XP SP3 setup CD. It loaded and then gave a stop A5 BSOD. Looking here it seems as if this is possibly an insurmountable problem. Of course the machine is fully ACPI compliant, as the Windows 10 installation indicates, but Windows XP setup is apparently not recognising it as being so, and I guess there's nothing that can be done about that. I suppose the hardware is just too new for Windows XP setup to be able to recognise. I could install it with the standard HAL, but that would be really restrictive, and I'm not confident that it would be possible to update the HAL after the installation, at least no more than I have been able to do up until now with the existing installation. I guess I've been lucky to get it working with any sort of ACPI HAL, and the Multiprocessor one just won't work. What do you guys reckon? Cut my losses and be content with the partially working installation I've got on the ISO?

That's actually a very good idea! If I don't get anywhere with the experiments I'm doing now, that would make perfect sense as I've got nothing to lose by trying a new install to see what result that produces on this hardware.

Well I'm not having any luck so far. Fortunately I took an ISO backup of the whole machine before i changed the HAL, so hopefully I can at least roll back to that condition. I've tried removing all the devices that would let me remove them, and telling the system find and install them again, where it can. This has made no difference. I think what I will try next is to set the machine back to being a non-multiprocessor ACPI PC just using the Device Manager, to see if that will roll it back properly and whether things come good with the drivers. I am beginning to wonder whether it will actually work as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC, although that's what Windows 10 says that it is!

Yes, there are 24 instances found. Mostly in the CriticalDeviceDatabase sections of the three ControlSets. There are also entries in the HKLM\System\<ControlSet>\Enum\PCI\ sections. I'm having doubts about the ACPI system now, the AHCI driver seemed to work fine with the previous HAL, and I'm wondering if I'm now using the wrong one, or my method of updating it was faulty and it hasn't actually updated properly.

Well I'm assuming it should be an "ACPI Multiprocessor PC". I was very sad when I found that thread on the Win-RAID forum had been trashed. There are so many links to it here. I was puzzled why they all just went to the forum front page, then I found out why. It looked like a mine of useful information. I certainly hope that would never happen here! Anyway, I still haven't got the AHCI driver working again. I've tried retracing my steps to see if I can do the install again like I did the first time with the other HAL, but nothing works. The registry entries are still intact, all the files are present and correct where they should be, but the driver just won't install. The driver in the Integrator just says there's no match for my hardware. If I boot in AHCI mode, the logo animation shows for about 10 seconds, then there a stop 7B BSOD. If I boot in standard mode, it does eventually boot, but it's so slow that it's unusable. There are other issue now too, the machine is still showing the "safe to turn off your computer" message, which surely it now shouldn't be, and instead of restarting it just permanently freezes on the shutdown logo. Other things are better though, like it's now seeing both processor cores which it wasn't before.

OK, I've managed to get it over to being an "ACPI Multiprocessor PC". After checking all the necessary files were present and the right versions (comparing with my main machine) I got the options back in Device Manager by changing the Hardware ID in the registry. This allowed me to select the right driver. Now of course, I've lost the ACHI driver again! It will only boot into compatible mode and is crawlingly slow. I'll have to work on that again now!

Yes, I guess so. Strange that multiprocessor PC isn't being offered. I'm still wondering if I just need to use a different version of the modified acpi.sys files. There are no less than 19 versions in the Integrator, and I'm using the default one at the moment, which is the one in the "acpi 6666 - 2020.10.22 - daniel_k" folder. Unfortunately the text files in the Integrator folders don't give any detail as to how the other 18 differ from this! I guess I could just try each one in turn to see if produces a better result with my particular hardware.

It's listed as an "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC". Should it be multiprocessor? There's only one physical processor of course, but it is dual core. I wasn't clear from my researches whether that is regarded as being two processors in this context. If I try updating the driver the existing setting and "Standard PC" are the only options offered.

I'm sure @jaclazwill be delighted to hear that I found a compatible driver for the touchpad this time! It's a Synaptics one on this machine. Not quite finished here though I'm afraid, I think there are problems still with the ACPI system. The machine now restarts OK, but when I shut down I still get the "It's safe to turn off your computer" message, which isn't right. It may or may not be connected, but there is no trace of the (Realtek) audio hardware either, it's not in Device Manager. I managed to install USB drivers, which put a lot of devices in, but I still have a problem with a wireless USB dongle mouse as well, it's being detected as a keyboard, and doesn't work! I'm thinking that maybe I need a different version of acpi.sys. There are lots of them in the Integrator, and I'm just using the default one at the moment. Is there any way of determining which would be best to use (there's lots of them!) to try next?

Yep, should have read that file! Read it before but didn't bother to look at it again, serves me right. Anyway, I copied the three files across and XP now boots in AHCI mode! It's now trying to install a driver, but it wants msachi.sys, a file that doesn't seem to exist on the machine anywhere, or on my other XP machine, or on the Windows XP installation CD. EDIT: OK, panic over, I just reinstalled the driver from the Integrator folder, and it's now OK, showing as a "Standard SATA AHCI Controller". Thanks guys so much for this, and for tolerating my stupidity! Now onwards to the further delights of finding all the other drivers, especially the touchpad, which is pretty unusable at the moment. @jaclazI do hope it doesn't take as long this time to find a working touchpad driver as it did last time! I'll let you know.........

Thanks, I'll copy the ntoskrn8.sys file back again. I had copied it before but removed it when that attempt came to nothing, so that could well be the problem. I can't boot into XP in any mode at the moment.

Just to add, I loaded the Windows XP registry in Windows 10 with Registry Workshop, and the added information was only in one of the three ControlSets. I manually added it to the other two just in case that was the problem, and confirmed that storahci.sys was indeed in the necessary folder. Still no difference, I'm still getting a message that it's missing or corrupt, and I can't get into Windows XP at all. The storahci.sys file is reporting that it's a Windows 8 version (6.1) is that really going to work?