Acer 6920G help

Hi, I have had an Acer 6920G for a few years now. a year ago I decided (stupidly without investigation) to get rid of vista and try to install windows XP. I found out the hard way after attempting to install XP that it's not compatible with the 6920G. Now every time I try to reinstall vista or 7 the laptop freezes. I have formatted the hdd countless times using both the recovery CD's and Darick's Boot and Nuke, but it hasn't made any difference, which makes me believe the problem lies within the motherboard or GPU. Has anyone else been in a similar situation or Is there any way to deal with this problem?

 

You can try to install win 7 on the hdd by using a usb stick. Or you can use an other laptop or desktop to install windows and then put it in your laptop.

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I've tried installing windows but it just crashes mid way. I've even removed the HDD and installed windows on another computer. windows installed ok onto the HDD but the laptop itself crashes.

 

As a test, try installing a modern Linux distribution on the machine. It will probably trigger the same issue that Windows 7 is hitting, and produce a much more useful error message than Windows.

 

ill give it a go later today, not sure ill get far enough though, it either freezes during startup/instalation or just restarts.

 

Don't worry, Linux gives useful debug messages even during setup.

(A word of caution, though - do not use Ubuntu, as it tends to hide important startup messages.)

 

You can install xp, all you have to do is put the harddrive in IDE mode. Then install the sata drivers after you are done.

 

I think is all to SATA drivers....I tried too on mine, 6935g and had to default from IDE to SATA again...Did not work well with xp..I thought tha with the RAM and processor should work much faster but didn't... not sure why...

 

I tried installing linux and the laptop just crashed again not long after turning it on. It seems like i cant even install anything atm. how do you switch to ide?

 

How did Linux "crash"? Please describe the error message it gave.

 

It just froze and i had to restart the laptop. appologies for my latent replies i dont have access to the net very often. I dont for for sure but it seems like the problem lies with the motherboard, as ive tried reinstalling windows several times even on another laptop then reinsert the hdd back into the acer. every time it just crashes and i have to turn it off and back on again.

 

Does it just freeze with no error messages even if you start the Linux installer in console mode, with no boot splash screen?

 

there is no error message, it either shuts down and restarts or freezes. I attempted to load linux from an external hdd (downloaded 6 iso's, opened and extracted all the files & folders to the root of the hdd) and it did not recognize any of the files. I removed the hdd from this laptop im using (Samsung R540). it started loading windows 7 ok then had a BSOD for 1 second then it shut down and restarted. if i just have the original hdd in the laptop without any system restore disk it seems ok, with no crashes or shutdowns and restarts. i just get a repeated message stating the os cant be found.

 

Are you seeing console output during boot (before it dies), or a graphical boot screen? You must disable any graphical boot screens to get error messages.

 

Sorry for the latent replies. I see the console. it seems ok if i dont run the recovery disk, i just get a message stating the os cant be found. but as soon as i launch the recovery disk it starts up ok but after a minute it either freezes or shuts down and restarts after a second or two.