Acer 5004 black screen during XP CD install

[WildRicer]

Help me before I go nuts. I have been presented with an Acer 5004WLMI Laptop to recover as the Acer Restore process fails miserablely . . . Alt+F10, D2D in the BIOS, etc. Am new to nLite and love it but have't become fully accustomed to doing all the process at once. I have slipstreamed an XP Home 2002 up to SP3 plus the updates through 1/15/12 and made an ISO of that for other needs; then added the Acer drivers. The CD boots but stays a black screen until a x07 (the nebulous "file not found") error shows up. If I put that CD in my Dell laptop the Windows install boot process shows up normally.

The Acer drive has been cleared off, repartitioned and formatted from my XP laptop. I have noticed in the LastSession.ini where I went back to make sure the GUI Attended settings were there that the Acer drivers were not included? Both ini's are attached.

What is the Acer looking for?

LAST SESSION (205802.15-19.25.48).INILAST SESSION.INI

Edited February 18, 2012 by WildRicer

[Kurt_Aust]

You should really do it all in one pass, also some of the drivers seem quite old and it seems strange that the Audio driver should have NT4 in the filepath (2000 and XP are NT 5.0 and NT 5.1).

I run 64-bit XP on an Acer 5024WMLi (one of the very first laptops that could run it), you may want to look at the drivers I use noting of course that you'll need the 32-bit equivalents.

[WildRicer]

Thanks for a response. Those drivers are the only ones available on the Acer site for the 5000 series. Will take a look at what you have.

1. By the way, the blasted thing has completely died now. Power button - on, CD drive tries to spin up, stops; Black screen, no BIOS.

2. Anybody know how to reflash the BIOS. The one that was active did not have a Boot from USB choice. I have found a couple of references that 3A27 is the most current

Update: After finding out that holding down the power button with the power and battery removed is supposed to bring back the BIOS . . . it took multiple attempts overnight.. . . . the BIOS is back. Made yet another XP install CD, all in one pass this time and will try it in the morning. This time I hope there are no "unable to copy file" errors like the last two tries. The files were there in i386 in compressed form like they should be.

Edited February 26, 2012 by WildRicer

[WildRicer]

OK, we are back to square one, the original question about the black screen on the Acer 5004 when trying to install XP from a CD. The install runs for some time then stops with a 0x07B blue screen. Somewhere in the forum it was mentioned that error is caused by a Mass Storage Controller not available. The Acer has a PATA drive. The Acer drivers available have no drivers for controllers or processor chip sets. That is unlike any other computer I have worked on.

Searching for answers I have run across several references showing nLite giving the choice of Text or PNP drivers during the driver part of the sequence.

Have I not found that option or has it been removed? It would appear that I need help in getting Text Mode working properly (even though it works when I start the install on this Dell laptop I am working on now.

Right now, if this Acer belonged to me it would be heading for the eWaste box at the county dump!

Anyone?

[Ponch]

if this Acer belonged to me it would be heading for the eWaste box at the county dump!

Anyone?

If it belonged to you, we would help, as nLite is licensed for personal use only.

[WildRicer]

Even this effort is not for pay?

If that is the case, goodbye.

[WildRicer]

I am back with two questions:

1.) the Acer 5004 belongs to a woman in her late 60's. Is this forum so exclusive that she would have to somehow do this on her own?

2.) I have received a reply from Herman but when I access the link I receive an error message that "an add-on for this website failed to run., Check the security settings in Internet Explorer for potential conflicts". My security settings are Microsoft standard; what is it that the site is expecting?

[submix8c]

1 - Nope... that would be (AFAIK) for Personal use, so probably ok.

2 - Who's Herman? What link?

* - Try just slipping SP3 and the Drivers and "Create ISO" - NO OTHERS e.g. UNATTENDED, Hotfixes, Tweaks, etc. ONLY the Service Pack and Drivers. Remember, Drivers are the INF files and the associated files, NOT the downloaded EXE file! The EXE files must FIRST be Unpacked (Try Universal Extractor). Burn ISO at a LOW SPEED (no more than 8x).

Edited May 29, 2012 by submix8c

[bphlpt]

... 1.) the Acer 5004 belongs to a woman in her late 60's. Is this forum so exclusive that she would have to somehow do this on her own? ...

Well, it depends. If you are a friend, family, neighbor, etc doing her a favor trying to help fix her machine, then as submix8c said I personally would consider that an extension of "personal use" and that should be fine. But if you are a business, even a non-profit one, doing this for a fee or even for free, then by strict interpretation of the rules we are forced to live by, then I'm afraid that would not qualify.

I also have no idea who Herman is.

Cheers and Regards

[WildRicer]

Thanks for both the replies!

If you go back up the page to my rather angry response to being "excluded" you will see that I asked "Even if it is not for pay?"

I am retired from the computer world (WAN system admin) but kept a small business. I do fixes in our rural area for pay but for those who cannot do them personally because of their age and/or low income status or close friends do not charge them . I may do a trade sometimes but usually that makes my doctor unhappy . . . . I am a Type II diabetic.. . . . because it is mostly for coookies and other such goodies.

Back to the original problem: submix8c - I unpack all the drivers and add them as single drivers; have not tried it without all the updates; Unattended I have tried GUI only and Defaults - once I figured out what that does. What is the default for Unattended if I don't do use it?

Drivers: my experience has always been that video drivers are not a factor for the initial part of Textmode but go in after Windows starts the full install. This is why this problem so frustrating.

I won't be able to try an install without hot fixes until next week due a very hectic week of local activities but wil report back as soon as it is done.

Finally, I just rebuilt a Toshiba Satellite A105 from a complete hard drive failure for my sister and saved hours thanks to nLite. >> used Default for unattended and Textmode did what it is supposed to do.

cheers

[submix8c]

What is the default for Unattended if I don't do use it?

Not unattended? (No WINNT.SIF, for one...)

Just like several others as of late, don't go into "OVERKILL" with nLite. Just do Service Pack (if needed), Drivers, and Create ISO to start with (keeps it CLEAN). AFTER that, do any other HotFixes, Add-Ons, Unattended, Tweaks, etc AFTER you get your feet wet. Remember, anything BEYOND just Service Pack WILL cause the ISO to be nLited and you can't use it to re-nLite (must start from "scratch").

[Ponch]

What is the default for Unattended if I don't do use it?

Not unattended? (No WINNT.SIF, for one...)

Not exactly. If you don't "use it", it keeps the settings (unattended or not) of the original disk. If you use it, it replaces all unattended settings (if any, in which case you get a warning) with only those supported/entered in nLite.

[WildRicer]

1. Re. Herman: I received this email - -- herman replied to Acer 5004 black screen during XP CD install; with this link in it tthat would not open - - - - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=155569&view=getnewpost

2. Just receveived one from Ponch - - - - same thing - - - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=155569&view=getnewpost - - - same thing with the ""an add-on for this website failed to run., Check the security settings in Internet Explorer for potential conflicts" error. My security settings are Microsoft standard; what is it that the site is expecting?

but I am willing to bet he is bootng me off, again.

for those that have helped, thank you very much.

no comment for the rest.

SM

[submix8c]

First of all, "WHO" is "herman"??? (there is no such member)

Second of all, there's a setting somewhere in profile (don't remember where) that "turns off" Notifications. Not sure if it's Global or not, BUT if you "Watch This Topic" there's definitely a place to set how you want to be notified or not at all.

Last, those "links" are pointing to THIS Topic's Last Post (look at the link address, my friend)...

@Ponch -

What is the default for Unattended if I don't do use it?

I guess that was a facetious response due to the fact that it was, well, obvious...

note - as for the browser "failure", something seems a bit strange there....

[WildRicer]

submix8c: As you said, it is fairly obvious that those links point here, just as your response got me here just now. I received the same error message but your post opened up. However, Ponch's didn't.

Oh, well. thanks