Another Clean INstall Question...

Ok, sorry, i know there are a million of these but I would prefer not to use the ACer REcovery system. I have a legit WIndows XP Pro SP 2 Intallation disk. Can I just use that to erase this Hard disk, reinstall windows and use the CD Key that is on the sticker on the bottom of my laptop? I have a 8204 btw. After that i would just one by one install the drivers that I want. Correct or is it more complex than that? The only questions is whether the blasted cd key would work, which it should, but you never know with microsoft and their ridiculous rights usuage policies.

 

I hope the answer to this question is yes. Otherwise, what is the use of shipping a notebook with a key and no disc. Stupid, really. Nearly as stupid as shipping a notebook with 2 FAT32 partitions.

 

No. it won't work.
Refer to HERE

 

I thought i knew something about computers but after reading that I have no idea what is going on in life and I am scared.

Is there any simpler guide on telling me I can do with what I have to reinstall windows on this **** thing? There has to be a way to do a clean install while using my own CD Key that was provided with this PC. Is there a way to rip the Windows Installation files from the "Recovery Disk" that I had to burn when i turned the computer on for the first time, and then use that for my own purposes?

 

I can't give you a yes or a no on if that will work for you, but I did exactly that and it worked. I used a legit XP Home cd I had to do a clean install and the key on the sticker on the laptop was accepted by microsoft.

The problem, though, was with the drivers. Before I did anything I downloaded all the drivers for my 5670 and saved them to another desktop. When I tried to install the drivers, several did not have setup files or the setup program did not work. I was able to get most functionality back, but not all. I then decided to revert back to the factory install using the disks I burned upon first starting the computer and the disks didn't work! Then I tried using ALT + F10 to reinstall from the hidden partition and guess what... it didn't work! I called Acer support about this and they told me that 1) not all the necessary drivers are on their support sites (seems like this would be an easy thing to do) and 2) that the hidden partition doesn't work if the hard drive has been converted to NTFS. I guess I'll be using Partition Magic 8.0. The support guy told me he would send out the reinstall disks and I could pull the drivers I needed from it (I haven't recieved them yet). So mabey before you reinstall windows you should have the reinstall disks sent out to you... just in case.

 

Got my 8204 yesterday. I love this thing. Havn't had any problems as of yet. No buzzing, no dead pixels, no light leakage, just great performance and a solid build.

Here's my clean install experience that has worked out wonderfully for my machine.

- I went to the acer FTP site on a seprate machine and download all the drivers.

- Did a clean install with a seprate copy of XP Pro that I had with it's own key.

- Made a 20GB partition for the OS and software installs, and the rest for data. This is so that if I ever need to format the OS, I have my important data on another partition, requiring only the C: drive to be wiped.

- Once I had XP up and running I started installing the drivers from the FTP site that I downloaded earlier. I started with the chipset driver, then went on to the video, audio, wireless, and other hardware dirvers. Then I reinstalled some of acers utilities that the factory build had. All of this is available at the FTP site.

- After all the dirvers were installed I went at getting all my apps and setting in place. Updated to SP2, and installed anti-virus.

This thing rocks. I'm very hapy with this laptop. Fast, sturdy, and sexy. Screen could be brighter for heavy bright light environments, and the heat vent could be somewhere else (but hey, it keeps my hand warm on these mild spring days). These issues are trivial compared to the speed and performance of this laptop. Props to Acer.

 

from my own experience of clean installing almost a dozen notebooks either for myself, a relative, or a friend, yes you can install using your copy of Win XP and the Product Key found in the MS authentication sticker found underneath your notebook, as long as they Product Key belongs to the same edition of Win XP. This means a Win XP Professional SP2 product key will only work with a Win XP Professional SP2 and not with a Home, Media Center, or Tablet Editions. The added bummer is you may have to activate Windows either by phone or online.

 

can i ask how do you configure that PQSERVICE on the first partition of a hdd of a notebook? and what actually is that for? is that a backup of the first run of your notebook? or backup of the current hdd? and what is the relation of that partition to the 4 CD i've created with eRecovery?

 

i believe that you could not partition the pqservice without destroying the data in it; hence, you could not edit its contents. it is configured as a primary sector as well. it is the image of the backup cds you are asked to make during the first install/configuration of a new notebook. the 1st cd in the batch is bootable. and is always a wise idea to have in case something happens to the recovery partition.

 

oh, ok, its the backup of my backup?

 

I think to think of it as: your backup is a backup of its backup