Cannot install XP

I recently bought an Acer AM1640 desktop computer that came with Vista Home installed on a bios partition. It automatically installed when I first started up the computer, and it's been nothing but trouble since. The computer is slow and it won't let me install any kind of software. I want to get rid of Vista and put XP Home on. I attempted to install XP by setting the CD ROM as the primary boot device and starting it up. It booted the CD and the Windows Hardware Inspection screen came up. It went through the motions and everything was looking good until it suddenly stopped and went to this BSOD:

A problem has been detected and windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If the screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK/F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical Information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I've retried several times but it's always the same result. I read that because it's a SATA HDD you need to put the drivers on a floppy and hit F6 during the inspection. I got the SATA drivers from the Acer website but they're for Vista not XP, and there's no way there going to fit on a floppy. I also read that you don't even need the drivers anyway and that you can put them on later. I've tried reformatting the HDD with Parted Magic and trying again, same result. I'm not sure what the problem is here... Can anyone help?

 

You may also be missing other XP drivers for your machine as many suppliers of hardware for pre-built systems don't even write drivers for XP anymore, so if you get past your SATA issue and install XP you could be missing other drivers, you need to do some homework. I hope you can at least get your Vista back. Post your main specs using Everest so that we can check the hardware you have, you may have a low-end system to run Vista and that's why it's slow.

 

Yeah I hear that. When I formatted the HDD I made sure I kept the recovery partition on the drive. It's stilll there. But in order to run Everest I'll have to get an OS up and going right? So I'll have to reinstall Vista for now I guess... The problem is I'm not sure how to boot that recovery partition....

 

Good morning ...
I think I have a solution for you

You say you have the sata drivers from acer but they are to large to fit on a floppy? You may wish to try to build your own xp disc with nlite..
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4324.html

A good tutorial with pretty pics is here.
http://paparadit.blogspot.com/2007/06/installing-sata-hard-drive-with-windows.html

Petaluma

OOPss ..just caught the part about not finding xp drivers.......so it seems I do not have the answer...bummer LOL

 

OK, I checked the specs at NCIX and your specs look good, better than I had at first and Vista was not slow with no issues. I couldn't find a manual so maybe shoot Acer an e-mail to find out how to recover. If you still want XP, maybe you can try dual booting, plenty of guides out there, but it will take some work if at all possible.

 

Shoot them an email asking how to boot the recovery partition you mean?

 

Yes. You may need recovery disks but I'm not sure as I don't know Acer. BTW, I edited my above post.

 

K thanks man, I'l get in touch with them. I'd really still rather just get XP going anyway though.... Any furthur thoughts on that?

 

It all depends if there are XP drivers available from ACER, I didn't check. As you have a totally integrated motherboard, Video, audio and Ethernet I have a bad feeling about this. Check for drivers first and if there are none then you have no choice but to stick with Vista.

There are guides out there to speed up Vista, perhaps start a new thread asking how to speed Vista up as there a lot of Vista users here and you shouldn't be having these problems depending on what you're using it for.

 

Just an FYI for anyone having issues with restoring Acers. I did a little research and found out that with Acer computers you can launch the eRecovery manager by hitting ALT+F10 during startup, it will then give you the option of restoring to factory condition. It prompts for a password (which was selected by the user when the machine was first setup), and away it goes. This worked and Vista is reinstalling now. I'm hoping it was just a bad install the first time and my issues clear up this time around. If not, back to trying to get XP on there.

 

My stew isn't ready yet so I did some digging at ACER and found a downgrade ISO disk for XP but they say it's only for Vista Business. At this point I'm at the end of my knowledge and I'll pass this on to someone else. Good luck.

Oops, missed the link. http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/fo...ada&siteid=7297&words=all&keywords=&areaid=17

 

Here's a crazy twist for you. I decided to check my RAM so I removed one stick (I have two 1024MB sticks) and started up Memtest. It showed 767MB of RAM. So I figured, there's the problem, bad RAM stick. I switched to the other stick and got the same thing, 767MB. This is using the same slot each time, I tried both sticks individually in the other slot starting up Memtest each time and here's where it's weird. I get 767MB no matter which stick I use and no matter which slot I use it in, but if I use both sticks in both slots at the same time get 1791MB. Anybody ever seen that before?

 

Oh ok. Well the RAM ended up testing good, and if the missing 257MB is normal I guess it's back to the drawing board...

 

Alright. I seemed to have got it. I followed the directions in this link that was pointed out to me:

http://www.nonoh.com/20080502/pre-vi...lation-on-sata

I used nLite to create an Xp disc that had the SATA drivers included. Worked like a charm. FYI I did pre-format the HDD using Parted Magic (keeping the recovery partition intact in case it didn't work, or there were driver issues down the road...). Now I'm just missing a few drivers :

coprocessor
ethernet controller
PCI Device
SM Bus Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

Thanks for all your help guys! Keep up the good work!

 

Re: Cannot install XP and installing Win server 2003 on Acer Aspire AM5641

Hi..thank you very much for your thread with the link in it how to create a CD with windows server 2003 with sata drivers included. I had a bit hard time how to do it, since last week. I got the same blue screen which you got when you have tried to install XP on your machine with the message on it. Now I got installed Win ser 2003 installed by deleting Vista..but it skipped some files when installing. Then I ran the command sfc /scannow with the installation CD in the drive. It checked whether all the protected files are intact and in their original versions and it ran successfully. I too left with the drivers which you have mentioned below uninstalled. Can you please let me know from where can I get them?.

 

This may or may not help here, but in case it does, I had another idea for a possible way . . . . .

Get a spare hard drive. Unplug the original. Remove any partitions from the new drive using a Windows ME or 98 startup floppy (FDISK). Then try to install XP on the spare HD and see if it works.

 

Hello..I have installed Windows server 2003 SP1 32 bit version of OS on top of Windows Vista. I am using nvidia geforce 7100 drivers. I am not able to find drivers for nvidia ethernet controllers and nvidia nforce networking controllers drivers. Can any one please help me out...Thanks for your reply.

 

I've seen this problem before, but only in a computer that has 2 hard drives and had an OS installed on the second drive. If Windows finds A previous instaltion of windows on the second drive it WILL NOT install it on the first drive. So you must remove the second drive before you install Windows.