Category Archives: Windows XP

Installing XP on your Acer 5920

  By Big Dan | September 5, 2008 - 10:50 pm | ,
24 Comments

UPDATE: September 8, 2008 to include driver package information from my previous post

Preface: Please read this entire guide before attempting to install XP on your laptop. It would be wise to make Vista backup discs with the included Acer utility in case you should need to install Vista again. Also please be advised my Acer came with integrated Intel graphics some 5920 models come with Nividia graphics cards, you will need to find and download those from http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx It goes with out saying that installing an operating system is a big job and often requires you to wipe your entire hard drive. Please backup all your important files beforehand!

Let’s get down to business:

Installing XP on your Acer 5920 laptop is fairly straight forward. Your first order of business is to change the hard drive’s SATA Mode. You’re going to do this by entering your BIOS setup this is done by pressing F2 at startup while the Acer splash screen is up as soon as you boot your computer. Once at the BOIS screen use your right arrow key to move over to the main tab. From there use the down arrow key to select the last option ‘SATA Mode’ press enter and use the up arrow key to select IDE mode and press enter.

Now we need to get the laptop to boot from the CD ROM. While in BIOS use the arrow key to scroll over to the fourth menu option, ‘Boot’ press down arrow until you get to #2 which should read IDE CD, highlight the IDE CD entry and press F6 to move it up. When you’re done IDE CD should be beside # 1. Now press F10 to save and exit, confirm your changes.

Here are some pictures to help you out a bit, click for full size:

Pop your XP CD in the CD-ROM drive before you reboot and close the drive. Reboot. Then press any key to boot from the CD.

Run through the XP install. I’d suggest wiping all partitions and giving XP the entire hard drive unless you want do dual boot with another OS such and Linux if that’s the case you’re smart enough to setup your own partitioning scheme. :)

From a fresh install of XP the following works:

Webcam
Trackpad
Left Side Hotkeys (Internet, email, etc)

As you can see, once XP was installed, virtually none of my hardware worked. No wireless internet or even Ethernet connection, so I Googled. I found this (second post) on a forum, it’s an exe that installs all the drivers necessary and I installed it and the install took about 10 minutes and when I restarted I had everything I needed. The only issue was some error about the blue tooth driver but I don’t use it, I’ll explore it in the future, if I need it. I’m going to upload the file here as it’s hosted at one of those file hosting sites and you never know how long the file will be available. Here is the link: <LINK REMOVED – VIRUS FOUND>

There are some issues with the wireless driver in that package, it wouldn’t install for me. You will have to download these with another computer and drop them on CD or thumb drive. Get the files from here:   http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2259&lang=eng select your windows version then select ‘Intel® PRO/Wireless Drivers-Only for Windows* XP’ download this file and copy it over to your laptop and run the installer.

Now here’s the problem, XP with it’s ever present pain in the ass activation BS will not activate for me so I’m going to leave off here. If I recall correctly once you connect to the internet and activate Windows you can get the rest of the drivers via Windows update.

If you run into any issues drop me a comment and I’ll see what I can do to help you out.

Last Edited 03/28/09 Typo fixes and link removal.

XP Installed On Acer Aspire 5920

  By Big Dan | August 15, 2008 - 12:57 pm |
11 Comments

I finally figured out how to install XP on my laptop. Funny thing is I had settled on Vista and was quite happy with it. I was messing around in BIOS changing something and seen the setting to change my HD to read as an IDE rather than SATA. I had read about this earlier and how to get XP installed on another model. Funny thing is my XP OEM license key activated on this computer, it was originally for my desktop..I’ve already updated to SP 3.

Once XP was installed, virtually none of my hardware worked. No wireless internet or even Ethernet connection, so I Googled. I found this (second post) on a forum, it’s an exe that installs all the drivers necessary and I installed it the install took about 10 minutes and when I restarted I had everything I needed. The only issue was some error about the bluetooth driver but I don’t use it, I’ll explore it in the future, if I need it. I’m going to upload the file here as it’s hosted at one of those file hosting sites and you never know how long the file will be available. <FILE REMOVED – Virus detected>

The package includes the graphics driver however it didn’t install correctly and I had to download it from Intel’s site: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=2800&DwnldID=16463&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng

Overall I was happy with Vista even though it was a little slow. XP runs like a champ on this machine, it simply flies. Even with additional software running on boot compared to Vista. On startup I’m running ZoneAlarm and Google Desktop it which I didn’t run on Vista and I still go from login to a usable desktop a lot faster! Firefox starts very fast too. Over all I’m more happy with this laptop than when I first bought it and I was happy then. :) Battery life even seems better.

Update: 11/21/08 – Avast Antivirus found a trojan in the download previously included here. Link removed and file deleted from server.

How to triple boot with Vista/XP/Ubuntu

  By Big Dan | April 6, 2008 - 7:26 am | , ,
3 Comments

After many corrupted MBRs (Master Boot Records), I finally got this triple booting thing down to a science. I’ve read plenty of how-to‘s they were a helpful starting point but they made some assumptions that didn’t fit my setup. First off most of these were written when Vista was beta and others assumed you had a full Vista DVD instead some garbage system restore CD from your computer’s manufacturer.

So, you ask why would one want to triple boot? Simply because I still use some Windows programs and XP runs a lot faster than Vista on my brand new machine. To be sure Vista runs reasonably well on this but XP is still faster over all.

This tutorial assumes you have Vista preinstalled from the factory and that you’ve made system recovery discs before attempting anything.

You will need a couple of things:

Download this Vista Rescue ISO this contains the tools to fix your master boot record after XP boinks it. Make sure you burn this as a disc image and not a file.

Download EasyBCD – This will allow you to add XP to Vista’s boot menu

A Windows XP CD

XP Drivers for your hardware. You will probably be able to get these from your computer’s manufacturers website. For instance, I needed drivers for my network card to get online with XP..Be advised everything might not work this is trial and error especially if your computer was “built for Vista”.

Now lets get to work:

Step One: Use Vista’s build in disc utility (Under administrative Tools in the control panel) to shrink Vista’s partition. With the space left of over create 3 partitions, one big enough for XP another 5 GB for Linux Swap and the rest for Linux Root (/) this should be at least 10 GB. Only format the XP partition as NTFS. Leave the others alone.

Step Two: Put your XP CD in the drive and reboot. Install Windows. When Windows gets to the part where it wants to reboot let it. On reboot you will most like be greeted with “Disc Read Error Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart”

Pop the Vista rescue CD your burned in the drive and reboot. Press a key to load from the disc, choose start up repair. The disc will repair your master boot record. Quit and reboot

Your back into Vista. In Vista use EasyBCD to create a boot entry for XP, this is pretty self explanatory.

Put your XP disc back in the drive. Reboot but don’t load from the CD. When the boot menu comes up select Windows XP. XP will continue installing from the CD. When XP is done installing your done.

Remove your XP CD from the drive. You are now dual booting Vista and XP. On startup you can select XP or Vista from the menu. If you want XP to be the default us EasyBCD to make it the default selection.

If you want to add Ubuntu into the mix and triple boot. It’s really quite easy. Download the Ubuntu ISO from www.ubuntu.com, burn the image, put the disc in your computer and reboot. Go through the setup prompt until you get to the disc partitioner. Choose “Manual”

You will see all 4 partitions, Vista, XP, and two empty ones. The smaller one you want to use as swap and the bigger one you want mount as /

Run the install process. The installer will automatically detect Vista’s boot loader and add it to the GRUB boot menu. After the install you can boot into Ubuntu or select Vista’s loader to load the menu and choose between XP or Vista.

I still haven’t figured out how to get grub to just add XP as a boot option when I do, I’ll update this tutorial.

Feedback or Questions are welcome in comments. :)