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    In English Please!- Step by step fresh install

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by cfi on the fly, May 3, 2006.

  1. cfi on the fly

    cfi on the fly Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just got my new Acer 5672. Im not real technical but I can follow directions. Would anyone mind writing a step by step process on the best way to do a fresh install. I would like to get rid of the items that are not needed. Any suggestions on what items to keep or not keep would be great also. I am a little unclear on how I am able to install Windows XP. I did make the neccesary back up disks. For you really dedicated individuals, maybe you could also give me a step by step on how to install the latest and greatest drivers. Thanks so much, greatly appreciated!!
     
    cfi on the fly, May 3, 2006
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  2. eatonop

    eatonop Notebook Consultant

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    if you only have the recovery cd disks that came packed with your Acer and the backup cds that was required of you by the machine while you were booting and configuring it the first time, you could not do a clean install. for the simple reason that both the recovery partition disk present in your hd, the original recovery cds, and the backups are one and the same in many respects.

    for a clean install of Windows XP you need a Windows XP installer cd. if you have a used retail version of the installer you can use that to install provided that the oem Windows XP license (found underneath your Acer 5672) corresponds to the retail edition you posess, that is, if your Acer 5672 license is for a Windows XP Pro SP2 edition, then your installer must be of the same suite otherwise the license would not function. you also need to visit the website of acer to download the necessary peripheral drivers for your computer model and save this to either a flash drive or external hd. you will need this later on.

    having checked that you have the right version to work with you license, clean install is easy. just CD boot your computer and let the WinXP cd installer lead you to the process. the way it goes is it asks you in what partition you want to install the operating system, whether it is going to format the partition as an NTFS or not (go with complete format with NTFS) and the rest of the process is practically intuitive.

    there is a caveat which you must know. the acer recovery hd partition though hidden occupies 4-6gb space in your hd. you can opt to leave it alone or you can recover it for your own use. some people have encountered difficulties doing a clean install because the recovery partition is interfering with the installation/configuration process. i say some not most for some strange reason because it is not clear why it occurs to some and not to others. you may or may not encounter this problem. but if you do it is not a hopeless case.

    what you need to do, though a bit complicated, is to remove the recovery partition. you do this using the FDISK utility which you can find in the old bootable Win98, WinME installers and booting to get to the DOS prompt. from the prompt to the OldDos directory and then fdisk.
     
    eatonop, May 3, 2006
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