Barrykgerdes
15-09-2008, 01:04 PM
Hi
As most have seen there are a number of cheap laptops still available at under $500. These computers have all got Windows Vista pre-installed on a 80GB or 120GB HDD.
Vista is not a suitable operating system for these computers mainly because it is so slow to load and work but most believe they are stuck with it.
Here is what I have done to my Acer 4315:
After playing with Vista for 4 months I decided it was not suitable for my lap top but as it was my only copy of Vista I did not want to loose it completely.
With Acronis True image, the only imager I could get to work on Vista, I made a complete image of drive C: and copied it to 4 DVD's 15GB in all.
I then bought a new 160 GB SATA hard drive and put it into the lap top in place of the original. As I wanted a multiboot system I needed to partition the disk into 5 partitions. I tried to do this with FDISK on a Windows 98-2e CD, (I needed something that booted off the DVD drive). I gave up as was going to take hours to do it this way so I just made a 2 GB partition and Tried to install Windows 98-2e.
This would not work. The program crashed before it got anywhere. It could not be installed. I then tried to install a copy of XP. The same problem I could not even get past the first screen without crashing. I had a think about this and had a look at the BIOS setup and changed the HDD drive to IDE mode. This did the trick.
I then installed Windows 98 onto the first partition and then a copy of Partition Magic 8.0. This basic system allowed me to partition the drive easily into the five partitions I require formatting them as FAT32 except the one (F as NTFS as I intended to use for Vista.
Next I installed A copy of Windows XP as a dual boot on drive E Yes I still have a clean unused copy with SP2). This worked OK so I down loaded the XP drivers from Acer on another computer and copied them to a CD along with a few usefull utilities. (At this stage I could not get onto the internet from the lap top because there was no driver for the wireless). I installed all the necessary drivers and a copy of Acronis true image.
After loading all my favourite programs into XP I found that XP went like a dream.
The next part was the hard part. Getting Vista onto the drive F . I managed to borrow a Vista disk from my son and installed it as a dual boot. This worked without any problems except I would not be able to activate it however it gave me the dual boot capability. The multi boot manager is now on the boot sector so I could not configure it to my liking. However it worked correctly.
At this stage I took my chances booting into Widows XP and with Acronis True image I installed my Vista image onto drive F (which appears as drive C when Vista is running). Well it worked perfectly. I now have my multiboot system working. How long did the task take - 3 days working 12 hrs a day!
Barry
As most have seen there are a number of cheap laptops still available at under $500. These computers have all got Windows Vista pre-installed on a 80GB or 120GB HDD.
Vista is not a suitable operating system for these computers mainly because it is so slow to load and work but most believe they are stuck with it.
Here is what I have done to my Acer 4315:
After playing with Vista for 4 months I decided it was not suitable for my lap top but as it was my only copy of Vista I did not want to loose it completely.
With Acronis True image, the only imager I could get to work on Vista, I made a complete image of drive C: and copied it to 4 DVD's 15GB in all.
I then bought a new 160 GB SATA hard drive and put it into the lap top in place of the original. As I wanted a multiboot system I needed to partition the disk into 5 partitions. I tried to do this with FDISK on a Windows 98-2e CD, (I needed something that booted off the DVD drive). I gave up as was going to take hours to do it this way so I just made a 2 GB partition and Tried to install Windows 98-2e.
This would not work. The program crashed before it got anywhere. It could not be installed. I then tried to install a copy of XP. The same problem I could not even get past the first screen without crashing. I had a think about this and had a look at the BIOS setup and changed the HDD drive to IDE mode. This did the trick.
I then installed Windows 98 onto the first partition and then a copy of Partition Magic 8.0. This basic system allowed me to partition the drive easily into the five partitions I require formatting them as FAT32 except the one (F as NTFS as I intended to use for Vista.
Next I installed A copy of Windows XP as a dual boot on drive E Yes I still have a clean unused copy with SP2). This worked OK so I down loaded the XP drivers from Acer on another computer and copied them to a CD along with a few usefull utilities. (At this stage I could not get onto the internet from the lap top because there was no driver for the wireless). I installed all the necessary drivers and a copy of Acronis true image.
After loading all my favourite programs into XP I found that XP went like a dream.
The next part was the hard part. Getting Vista onto the drive F . I managed to borrow a Vista disk from my son and installed it as a dual boot. This worked without any problems except I would not be able to activate it however it gave me the dual boot capability. The multi boot manager is now on the boot sector so I could not configure it to my liking. However it worked correctly.
At this stage I took my chances booting into Widows XP and with Acronis True image I installed my Vista image onto drive F (which appears as drive C when Vista is running). Well it worked perfectly. I now have my multiboot system working. How long did the task take - 3 days working 12 hrs a day!
Barry