Cannot install ANY Windows OS on Aspire One AOA150

Hi guys,

I am having a weird issue. I am trying to install Windows XP or Windows 7 on an Aspire One AOA150 netbook, but it fails. It has a 160gb hdd, and I AM ABLE to install Ubuntu on it.

Here is what happening. I use a usb stick (tried two different, don't think the USB stick is the problem).

1. For Windows XP, I go through the text portion, and when I start the GUI portion, I get the XP logo, and it just sits there forever. I can see the bar under the logo scrolling, but it's not the smooth scrolling, it looks kinda choppy. There is no disk activity what soever (hdd or usb).

2. I tried with Windows 7, and similar things happen. It goes through the initial progress bar, then I see the Win 7 logo, then the logo disappears and the screen turns black. It just sits there forever with no activity.

3. I also tried to run a Windows Live USB, but similar thing happens - it just hangs at the beginning.

I have also upgraded the BIOS using the FN + ESC method, but it did not make any difference.

Ubuntu installs and works without any issues whatsoever. Do you guys have any ideas? I spent 3-4 days trying things out and am already out of ideas.

Thanks in advance.

 

Are you sure the installs you are doing from the USB stick are good installation media? I don't suppose you have a USB optical drive and winxp/7 optical media installations that you can try?

 

well, that was the next step I was gonna try. I made the USB from CD/DVD that I have successfully used on computers that had CD/DVD ROMs. I am 100% sure the media is fine.

I will borrow an USB DVD from a friend on Monday, but other than that, there is nothing else I could think of.

I have the feeling it could be a hardware problem, but now that I have deleted all the partitions (including the recovery), I am not sure what to tell ACER so that they try to play stupid and try to not honor the warranty (a friend of mine had a very bad experience with Acer's warranty recently).

Any other thoughts?

 

This might has nothing to do with it but do you have the option to change the HDD mode in the BIOS, AHCI/IDE? If you do, switch to IDE mode and try to install windows.

Yeah I know that W7 should install no matter the hdd mode but I've seen this issue before when no MS OS would install until the hdd mode was set to ide.

 

thanks ATG, I had thought of that, but no such option in the BIOS (even with the latest version). My 5920G has the option, but not the AOA150. I'll try the USB DVD and post the results. I somehow have the feeling it's a RAM issue ...

 

just tried with a USB DVD and it hangs at the exact same point. ???

Help guys ((

 

Bad HDD is where my money's at.

 

1. Make sure that you don't have any non-essential USB or external devices attached to your laptop during the install.

2. Run a chkdsk /f on the HD from a command prompt on your OS installation disk. See if any errors were detected or fixed.

3. Do a complete format of your HD from the OS disk. W7 does not do this by default, you need to perform it from the Advanced menu.

4. Try to reinstall again.

 

Thanks for your replies.

FYI, I think I was able to identify the problem - either a faulty memory stick or vga problem (it's using shared video memory, so it could be a memory problem as well). I tried loading UBuntu live CD (was going to edit the boot.ini file to include logging and debugging), and it gave me an error CANNOT LOAD X DESKTOP. Weird because I was able to install the Ubuntu netbook version. Go figure ...

The unit goes back to ACER for repair.

 

Take out HDD (google around - there are videos explaining that, and service repair manual for Aspire One), connect to another PC, install and open up Active@ Partition Recovery, select this HDD, go through menu - Tools-Fix MBR (Create Typical MBR), in first popup window select Yes (agreing to fix MBR), in second select No (agreing to fix MBR and delete all partitions on HDD, because Yes- you agreing to fix MBR without deleting all partitions, but be sure you back up your data, if you have any). Then with Acronis Disk Director wipe this HDD. Then repeat fixing exactly the same with Active@ Partition Recovery. Go back to Acronis Disk Director, create partition - primary and set it active. Format with NTFS (if you want to Install XP or later, and if its not SSD). Then shut down PC, take out your HDD, back to the netbook. Now you can install any Windows if you haven't other problems with your netbook. Better try installing with external DVD drive, because USB drives sometimes fail.

And make sure you disabled D2D Recovery in BIOS-Main, because as said in Service Repair manual this
"Enables, disables D2D Recovery function. The function allows the user to create a hidden partition on hard disc drive to store operation system and restore the system to factory defaults."
This should be disabled.