Installing XP on Acer One - Please help me

[stuartw]

Hi,

I have a huge problem which I desperately need help with, and fast! My dad has bought an Acer One D250 as a gift for my mom for Xmas, and as we live in Spain, it came with Windows7 starter in Spanish thus I decided to change it for XP. With no cd drive I´ve tried to install using a 4gb flash drive, I´ve also read, downloaded and tried every method I can find to get this done but with no luck at all. What happens is this:

After prep of the usb with winsetupfromusb_0_2_3, formated as ntfs and to boot as hd using RMPrebUSB, it boots up with no problem. I choose the txt installation and setup starts, I then delete existing C: partition and then create new C: partition. As instructed, I then reboot and choose txt install again, continue to format the new C: partition and start the windows install. All files are then copied, no problems so far. Once all files are copied it then reboots and I select the GUI installation. Windows then continues to install, still with no problems at all. Once installed......PROBLEMS? It wont boot at all. Without the usb drive connected all I get is "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware config. problem". With the usb connected, if I select gui install again, I get 3 seconds of the XP boot screen before it flashes up a BSOD and then automatically reboots. So I spent days going through forums and reading other peoples problems, and as far as I can tell its a boot.ini problem. OK, so I boot into the recovery console and try fixmbr, which tells me that the system has an invalid mbr and I could wreck the partitions if I continue with fixmbr. So I try it anyway (nothing to loose) and its still the same. So I then scan and add the found windows installation to the mbr from the recovery console so that when I boot I now get the choice of 2 boot options, the 1st one that was installed and the installation that I just added to the mbr (both the same). No luck, just get the same error.

I´ve slipstreamed the xp installation using dpsbase with the mass storage drivers and the chipset drivers.

I´ve tried installing with the bios set to IDE instead of ACPI but it really didnt like that and had even more errors, but with ACPI it installs with no errors.

I´ve tried installing with the usb in FAT32 and NTFS, no difference only LOTS slower in FAT32

I tried booting from different partitions, no luck.

As you can see, I think I´ve tried pretty much everything that has been suggested in various forums and sites and I´ve now run out of ideas. If XP appears to install perfectly, why will it not reboot?? I seems I have an Acer One with no OS, and there is only 10 days to Xmas and I´m getting a little worried.

Please Please Please help me....

[jaclaz]

Have you all the right drivers?

Post a copy of the BOOT.INI on your hard disk.

fixmbr has NOTHING to do with BOOT.INI, if you can get to the choices in BOOT.INI, your MBR and bootsector are allright, and you should leave them alone.

Read this one:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=8758&hl=

jaclaz

[stuartw]

Hi Jaclaz,

Thanks for your speedy reply. As far as I know, yes I have all the drivers. In fact not long ago I installed xp on my aspire 5920 using the same copy of xp. Forgot to mention that its Xp pro Sp3. I hate to sound stupid, but how can I bring up the boot.ini? The best I can do is bootcfg/list from the recovery console and give you the boot list, which now has 2 entries:

[1] "Windows XP Professional"

OS Load Options:

OS Location: C:\WINDOWS

[2] "Microsoft Windows XP Professional"

OS Load Options: /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

OS Location: C:\WINDOWS

Read the post that you linked, I´ve been through the same thing and done the same thing too. Except mines not working.

Stuart

[jaclaz]

Most probably you need to use a "no more CATCH22" trick:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20983&st=25

Copy the boot.ini file on your hard disk to (say) \Temp\BOOT.INI on your USB stick.

You may need to change it's attrib settings:

http://commandwindows.com/recovery.htm

http://commandwindows.com/recovery-console-commands.htm

in order to be able to copy it

Open it in notepad on the system you are using to visit the board.

Copy and paste.

However from what you posted, you have both entry pointing to C:\Windows, that should mean that choosing either of the two you should have the SAME success or failure .

Haven't you anything more "comfortable" than RC? Like a PE of some kind?

http://www.msfn.org/board/install-xp-usb-a...sb-t121446.html

Next step would be to change the Registry key that makes the system autoreboot on BSOD, in order to be able to read it's error message.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/auto_reboot_on_system_crash.htm

With RC only you need:

• to copy the file \WINDOWS\system32\config\system to the USB
  
• on another system load the system hive on your local registry and change the setting in ControlSet001 (CurrentControlSet is ONLY available on an online system)
  
• unload the hive
  
• copy back from RC from USB to \WINDOWS\system32\config\system
  

jaclaz

[stuartw]

Just to let you know that I´ve conceded defeat... ..and it takes a lot for me to do that. If I had more time I would leave it for a few days and then hit it again with a vengance, but it needs to be ready for xmas. Also I spoke to my hardware supplier who has techies doing installs for him, and he offered to get it installed for me for €24! I spent 5 days doing my brain in for €24 ? ****...I just wish I had joined this forum at the beginning before I spent so much time on it and getting frustrated and confused . I´m sure I could have done it with your help and I must say that you (jaclaz) are a star for the speed in which you took up my challenge, and everyone elses for that matter. I will definately post here next time I have problems, in fact I´m going to (absolutely, positively need to) find out what the problem was and I´ll post it here for anyone else having the same issue. Thanks for your help.

Stuart

[travisnj]

Just to let you know that I´ve conceded defeat... ..and it takes a lot for me to do that. If I had more time I would leave it for a few days and then hit it again with a vengance, but it needs to be ready for xmas. Also I spoke to my hardware supplier who has techies doing installs for him, and he offered to get it installed for me for €24! I spent 5 days doing my brain in for €24 ? ****...I just wish I had joined this forum at the beginning before I spent so much time on it and getting frustrated and confused . I´m sure I could have done it with your help and I must say that you (jaclaz) are a star for the speed in which you took up my challenge, and everyone elses for that matter. I will definately post here next time I have problems, in fact I´m going to (absolutely, positively need to) find out what the problem was and I´ll post it here for anyone else having the same issue. Thanks for your help.

Stuart

I have the ACER ASPIRE R3600, similar to the ONE in bios; the reason I had issue with XP was due to AHCI; I set SATA to IDE and fixed my BSOD issues.