swapping pre-installed Vista for XP
in [Windows Performance]
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From: Bill on 16 Mar 2010 01:54 I have an Acer Aspire L3600 mini PC, a great little second PC but for the fact that it came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed in a "hidden" part of 'D'. It has a built in facility where 'C' can be wiped completely clean and restored to its factory default condition, data etc on 'D' hopefully being untouched. I don't like Vista much and would prefer to install my full retail version of Win XP on this PC. I don't mind giving up Vista completely. Acer's support is OK as far as it goes but they make it clear that they do NOT recommend this course of action ,saying that they do not support downgrading the unit with anything other than what came pre-installed on the machine. They warn of the risk of "product failure". If the 'downgrade ' to Win XP can technically be done I'm willing to take the risk but need a bit more help on the mechanics of doing it. I have installed OSs on other PCs from scratch but this process, i.e. totally removing a pre-installed OS which is in some hidden and protected part of the hard drive, appears to be rather more involved and I'm way out of my comfort zone! I need help and advice. Acer say that to run XP I will need to create a bootable disk with SATA drivers otherwise Windows will not detect the hard drive when the CD is run. I think I've tracked these down on their download site, at least in the driver download section these were the only ones to show up. What's come up are a total of 6 for Chipset, Audio, Lan, Modem, VGA and Wireless Lan. Each one is in a zipped folder. Out of interest I compared these to the drivers listed for the pre-installed version of Vista. The chipset version number is identical to the XP version but the others have different version numbers and there is a additional TV driver for Vista Home Premium (the L3600 is media centre enabled). So, 1. Are these 6 drivers in fact the SATA drivers Acer are referring to? 2. How do I create the bootable disk they refer to. When I've installed an OS in the past I've used a floppy which was inserted early during the install process when prompted to do so. I don't recall there being 6 separate drivers though. I have an external floppy disk drive and wonder whether this could be used in this case? If not can anyone tell me how to do it and what the procedure is when installing XP. 3. Is the removal of the pre-installed material simply a question of formatting the entire hard drive? I thought of abandoning the idea of having two partitions, 'C' and 'D' and, on this PC, using external drives for all data storage. 4. Is there anything else of which I should be aware? Regards, Bill
From: Anteaus on 16 Mar 2010 03:37 Check the BIOS to see if ther is an option to set the disk access to legacy or IDE mode. This may eliminate the need for slipstreaming. You will need to format the Vista partition. If you want to keep the contents in case the down(up!)grade fails, you could try Drive Image XML. "Bill" wrote: > I have an Acer Aspire L3600 mini PC, a great little second PC but for the > fact that it came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed in a "hidden" part > of 'D'. It has a built in facility where 'C' can be wiped completely clean > and restored to its factory default condition, data etc on 'D' hopefully > being untouched. > > I don't like Vista much and would prefer to install my full retail version > of Win XP on this PC. I don't mind giving up Vista completely. > > Acer's support is OK as far as it goes but they make it clear that they do > NOT recommend this course of action ,saying that they do not support > downgrading the unit with anything other than what came pre-installed on the > machine. They warn of the risk of "product failure". > > If the 'downgrade ' to Win XP can technically be done I'm willing to take > the risk but need a bit more help on the mechanics of doing it. I have > installed OSs on other PCs from scratch but this process, i.e. totally > removing a pre-installed OS which is in some hidden and protected part of > the hard drive, appears to be rather more involved and I'm way out of my > comfort zone! I need help and advice. > > Acer say that to run XP I will need to create a bootable disk with SATA > drivers otherwise Windows will not detect the hard drive when the CD is run. > I think I've tracked these down on their download site, at least in the > driver download section these were the only ones to show up. > > What's come up are a total of 6 for Chipset, Audio, Lan, Modem, VGA and > Wireless Lan. Each one is in a zipped folder. > > Out of interest I compared these to the drivers listed for the pre-installed > version of Vista. The chipset version number is identical to the XP version > but the others have different version numbers and there is a additional TV > driver for Vista Home Premium (the L3600 is media centre enabled). > > So, > > 1. Are these 6 drivers in fact the SATA drivers Acer are referring to? > > 2. How do I create the bootable disk they refer to. When I've installed > an OS in the past I've used a floppy which was inserted early during the > install process when prompted to do so. I don't recall there being > 6 separate drivers though. > I have an external floppy disk drive and wonder whether this could be > used in this case? If not can anyone tell me how to do it and what the > procedure is when installing XP. > > 3. Is the removal of the pre-installed material simply a question of > formatting the entire hard drive? I thought of abandoning the idea of > having two partitions, 'C' and 'D' and, on this PC, using external drives > for all data storage. > > 4. Is there anything else of which I should be aware? > > Regards, > > Bill > > . >
From: SC Tom on 16 Mar 2010 09:01 "Bill" <frog(a)missthisbigpond.com> wrote in message news:efhck0MxKHA.3304(a)TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... >I have an Acer Aspire L3600 mini PC, a great little second PC but for the >fact that it came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed in a "hidden" part >of 'D'. It has a built in facility where 'C' can be wiped completely >clean and restored to its factory default condition, data etc on 'D' >hopefully being untouched. > > I don't like Vista much and would prefer to install my full retail version > of Win XP on this PC. I don't mind giving up Vista completely. > > Acer's support is OK as far as it goes but they make it clear that they do > NOT recommend this course of action ,saying that they do not support > downgrading the unit with anything other than what came pre-installed on > the machine. They warn of the risk of "product failure". > > If the 'downgrade ' to Win XP can technically be done I'm willing to take > the risk but need a bit more help on the mechanics of doing it. I have > installed OSs on other PCs from scratch but this process, i.e. totally > removing a pre-installed OS which is in some hidden and protected part of > the hard drive, appears to be rather more involved and I'm way out of my > comfort zone! I need help and advice. > > Acer say that to run XP I will need to create a bootable disk with SATA > drivers otherwise Windows will not detect the hard drive when the CD is > run. I think I've tracked these down on their download site, at least in > the driver download section these were the only ones to show up. > > What's come up are a total of 6 for Chipset, Audio, Lan, Modem, VGA and > Wireless Lan. Each one is in a zipped folder. > > Out of interest I compared these to the drivers listed for the > pre-installed version of Vista. The chipset version number is identical > to the XP version but the others have different version numbers and there > is a additional TV driver for Vista Home Premium (the L3600 is media > centre enabled). > > So, > > 1. Are these 6 drivers in fact the SATA drivers Acer are referring to? > > 2. How do I create the bootable disk they refer to. When I've > installed an OS in the past I've used a floppy which was inserted early > during the install process when prompted to do so. I don't recall > there being 6 separate drivers though. > I have an external floppy disk drive and wonder whether this could > be used in this case? If not can anyone tell me how to do it and what the > procedure is when installing XP. > > 3. Is the removal of the pre-installed material simply a question of > formatting the entire hard drive? I thought of abandoning the idea of > having two partitions, 'C' and 'D' and, on this PC, using external drives > for all data storage. > > 4. Is there anything else of which I should be aware? > > Regards, > > Bill Looking at the readme in the chipset drivers zip, it contains the SATA driver and instructions on how to pre-load it before the OS. I didn't read the whole thing in depth, but it looks like you need the XP OEM CD to do it. IIRC, XP service pack 3 has SATA drivers included, so if you have an installation CD with XP SP3 on it, you'll be able to do the install without needing to load the SATA drivers yourself. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm incorrect.) If your XP CD is SP1a or SP2, you can slipstream SP3 with it and create a new bootable installation CD that will have the same results. Here's a link describing the process: How to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3 http://www.howtohaven.com/system/slipstream-xp-service-pack-3.shtml If it were me, since you'll have to format your HDD to do the installation, I'd do a disk image before attempting any of this. That way, if it all goes horribly wrong, you can restore the image without having to reinstall all your programs. There are a number of free imaging programs that will work fine for you; just do a Google, Bing, or Yahoo for them. Or if a new drive isn't too expensive or out of your budget range, just start with a fresh drive and put your old one on a shelf for emergency purposes. Then, if everything works out OK, you can always use it for a backup drive. That's what I did when I upgraded from Vista to Win7 on my notebook. I imaged my installed drive to a new one, then put it in the notebook to be sure it worked, then upgraded to Win7. Now I have it running, and a spare on the shelf if this one gets damaged. But that's just me; I don't trust the integrity of notebook drives that much, and I'm careful not to bang it around. Download and extract all the driver files to a CD before you start this project. After the XP installation and before connecting to the internet, install all the drivers and see if they work OK. Then you can set up your firewall and other security measures before connecting to the net and getting all the XP security updates. It's great that this is a second PC since then you won't feel rushed to complete this. Rushing is one of the greatest creators of errors in a project like this :-) Certainly sounds like a fun thing to try! Best of luck! -- SC Tom
From: Ken Blake, MVP on 16 Mar 2010 10:46 On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:54:03 +1000, "Bill" <frog(a)missthisbigpond.com> wrote: > I have an Acer Aspire L3600 mini PC, a great little second PC but for the > fact that it came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed in a "hidden" part > of 'D'. Almost certainly, Vista is preinstalled on C, not D. What's on D is not Vista pre-installed but what you need to reinstall it--to reset the computer to the condition it was in when it came from the factory. And it's not "part" of D, it's all of it; D should be reserved for that use, and nothing else should ever be written there, since doing so can screw up the restoration info that's there. > It has a built in facility where 'C' can be wiped completely clean > and restored to its factory default condition, Exactly! That's what D is for. This is the way most OEM computers are done these days. > data etc on 'D' hopefully > being untouched. Again, you should never write any data to D. That's *not* what it's for. > I don't like Vista much and would prefer to install my full retail version > of Win XP on this PC. I don't mind giving up Vista completely. > > Acer's support is OK as far as it goes but they make it clear that they do > NOT recommend this course of action ,saying that they do not support > downgrading the unit with anything other than what came pre-installed on the > machine. They warn of the risk of "product failure". I don't recommend it either. If Vista is new to you, your dislike of it is probably mostly due to unfamiliarity. Give yourself enough time to get accustomed to it, and you may very well find that your views will change completely. But it's certainly your choice. > If the 'downgrade ' to Win XP can technically be done I'm willing to take > the risk but need a bit more help on the mechanics of doing it. I have > installed OSs on other PCs from scratch but this process, i.e. totally > removing a pre-installed OS which is in some hidden and protected part of > the hard drive, appears to be rather more involved and I'm way out of my > comfort zone! I need help and advice. First of all, realize that a downgrade is not possible. What you need to do is clean install Windows XP. Clean installation is very easy and straightforward. You boot from the installation CD and follow the prompts for a clean installation. It will begin by formatting the drive and wiping out everything there, so be sure you have first backed up anything you need to external media. > Acer say that to run XP I will need to create a bootable disk with SATA > drivers otherwise Windows will not detect the hard drive when the CD is run. > I think I've tracked these down on their download site, at least in the > driver download section these were the only ones to show up. I don't know anything about the details of your computer, and it's best to get all the info about drivers etc. that you need from Acer. > What's come up are a total of 6 for Chipset, Audio, Lan, Modem, VGA and > Wireless Lan. Each one is in a zipped folder. > > Out of interest I compared these to the drivers listed for the pre-installed > version of Vista. The chipset version number is identical to the XP version > but the others have different version numbers and there is a additional TV > driver for Vista Home Premium (the L3600 is media centre enabled). > > So, > > 1. Are these 6 drivers in fact the SATA drivers Acer are referring to? Check with Acer to be sure. > 2. How do I create the bootable disk they refer to. > When I've installed an OS in the past I've used a floppy which was inserted early during the > install process when prompted to do so. It's a bootable *CD* you need, not a floppy > I don't recall there being > 6 separate drivers though. That depends entirely on what hardware you have. > I have an external floppy disk drive and wonder whether this could be > used in this case? If not can anyone tell me how to do it and what the > procedure is when installing XP. Again, check with Acer. > 3. Is the removal of the pre-installed material simply a question of > formatting the entire hard drive? Yes, and as I said above, that formatting is part of the clean installation, and doesn't need to be done first. > I thought of abandoning the idea of > having two partitions, 'C' and 'D' and, Again, your D is not for data, it's for restoration of Vista > on this PC, using external drives > for all data storage. I don't recommend that. Store data within C, and use your external drive(s) for backup. If you travel with this laptop, why would you want to carry around any external hard drives? It just means more weight and space you have to carry. > 4. Is there anything else of which I should be aware? > > Regards, > > Bill -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003 Please Reply to the Newsgroup
From: Bill on 19 Mar 2010 04:01
Many thanks for the helpful advice in the replies. One small point about Ken Blakes comments on the D drive. Acer have said "Doing a restore back to factory default will erase everything completely i.e. even viruses/trojans on your C:\ drive. Restore back to its original state. The D:\ drive will be left untouched as it contains your Recovery image file which is hidden away." which led me to suppose that data files should be kept on D as otherwise it would be erased. "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake(a)this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message news:ud5vp5ple4vc55d3o7vpb2inkmge139s7p(a)4ax.com... > On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:54:03 +1000, "Bill" <frog(a)missthisbigpond.com> > wrote: > >> I have an Acer Aspire L3600 mini PC, a great little second PC but for the >> fact that it came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed in a "hidden" >> part >> of 'D'. > > > Almost certainly, Vista is preinstalled on C, not D. What's on D is > not Vista pre-installed but what you need to reinstall it--to reset > the computer to the condition it was in when it came from the factory. > And it's not "part" of D, it's all of it; D should be reserved for > that use, and nothing else should ever be written there, since doing > so can screw up the restoration info that's there. > > >> It has a built in facility where 'C' can be wiped completely clean >> and restored to its factory default condition, > > > Exactly! That's what D is for. This is the way most OEM computers are > done these days. > > >> data etc on 'D' hopefully >> being untouched. > > > Again, you should never write any data to D. That's *not* what it's > for. > > >> I don't like Vista much and would prefer to install my full retail >> version >> of Win XP on this PC. I don't mind giving up Vista completely. >> >> Acer's support is OK as far as it goes but they make it clear that they >> do >> NOT recommend this course of action ,saying that they do not support >> downgrading the unit with anything other than what came pre-installed on >> the >> machine. They warn of the risk of "product failure". > > > I don't recommend it either. If Vista is new to you, your dislike of > it is probably mostly due to unfamiliarity. Give yourself enough time > to get accustomed to it, and you may very well find that your views > will change completely. But it's certainly your choice. > > >> If the 'downgrade ' to Win XP can technically be done I'm willing to take >> the risk but need a bit more help on the mechanics of doing it. I have >> installed OSs on other PCs from scratch but this process, i.e. totally >> removing a pre-installed OS which is in some hidden and protected part >> of >> the hard drive, appears to be rather more involved and I'm way out of my >> comfort zone! I need help and advice. > > > First of all, realize that a downgrade is not possible. What you need > to do is clean install Windows XP. Clean installation is very easy and > straightforward. You boot from the installation CD and follow the > prompts for a clean installation. It will begin by formatting the > drive and wiping out everything there, so be sure you have first > backed up anything you need to external media. > > > >> Acer say that to run XP I will need to create a bootable disk with SATA >> drivers otherwise Windows will not detect the hard drive when the CD is >> run. >> I think I've tracked these down on their download site, at least in the >> driver download section these were the only ones to show up. > > > I don't know anything about the details of your computer, and it's > best to get all the info about drivers etc. that you need from Acer. > > >> What's come up are a total of 6 for Chipset, Audio, Lan, Modem, VGA and >> Wireless Lan. Each one is in a zipped folder. >> >> Out of interest I compared these to the drivers listed for the >> pre-installed >> version of Vista. The chipset version number is identical to the XP >> version >> but the others have different version numbers and there is a additional >> TV >> driver for Vista Home Premium (the L3600 is media centre enabled). >> >> So, >> >> 1. Are these 6 drivers in fact the SATA drivers Acer are referring to? > > > Check with Acer to be sure. > > >> 2. How do I create the bootable disk they refer to. >> When I've installed an OS in the past I've used a floppy which was >> inserted early during the >> install process when prompted to do so. > > > It's a bootable *CD* you need, not a floppy > > > >> I don't recall there being >> 6 separate drivers though. > > > That depends entirely on what hardware you have. > > >> I have an external floppy disk drive and wonder whether this could >> be >> used in this case? If not can anyone tell me how to do it and what the >> procedure is when installing XP. > > > Again, check with Acer. > > >> 3. Is the removal of the pre-installed material simply a question of >> formatting the entire hard drive? > > > Yes, and as I said above, that formatting is part of the clean > installation, and doesn't need to be done first. > > >> I thought of abandoning the idea of >> having two partitions, 'C' and 'D' and, > > > Again, your D is not for data, it's for restoration of Vista > > >> on this PC, using external drives >> for all data storage. > > > I don't recommend that. Store data within C, and use your external > drive(s) for backup. If you travel with this laptop, why would you > want to carry around any external hard drives? It just means more > weight and space you have to carry. > > >> 4. Is there anything else of which I should be aware? >> >> Regards, >> >> Bill > > -- > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003 > Please Reply to the Newsgroup |