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    TravelMate 5520 SATA driver problem

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by snaked, Sep 18, 2007.

  1. snaked

    snaked Newbie

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    Hi guys,

    I bought a new TravelMate 5520 notebook a few weeks ago, and I've come to a conclusion that I must get rid of Windows Vista and go back to Windows XP.

    I have been searching through the whole Internet for the SATA drivers for this particular notebook, but they are nowhere to be found. The Acer support website (Europe) has all the other drivers for XP but not the SATA driver.

    With this kind of blockage in front of me, my question is that can I use any other SATA driver? For example, if another notebook has the same chipset as mine, would that make my life easier? I've gone through the Acer website and ftp, but all I have found are some SATA drivers for Intel chipsets. I assume that they won't work in my notebook because I have an ATI chipset.

    Any kind of help is warmly welcome! Big thanks in advance.
     
    snaked, Sep 18, 2007
    #1
  2. Eleison

    Eleison Thanatos Eleison

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    Most new notebooks don't actually require that a SATA driver be installed, unless either AHCI or RAID is enabled. If AHCI is enabled, your BIOS should allow you to disable it, thus enabling a Windows installation. If it is an older RAID-enabled chipset, though, you may be out of luck.
     
    Eleison, Sep 18, 2007
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  3. bigspin

    bigspin My Kind Of Place

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    bigspin, Sep 18, 2007
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  4. snaked

    snaked Newbie

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    Yesterday evening I decided to try installing XP without the SATA drivers and it succeeded!
    The installation didn't whine about anything in any phase of the process, and I didn't have to change any settings from BIOS except the boot sequence from HDD to CD.

    This notebook has ATI M690 chipset and Hitachi Travelstar HDD if I remember correctly, so I assume that the same thing works on all other notebooks which has the same chipset and HDD.

    Thanks for you help!
     
    snaked, Sep 19, 2007
    #4