Like what?

If you mean Win 98SE, well mine isn't bootable - I have to use a Win98SE.ima (image file) in order to be able to install Win 98SE on each of my virtual machines (Virtual PC, VMWare Player).

Thanks, Jenny. I really like Thurott's articles. It could be that I simply wasn't patient enough when it would hang for a long, long time when asking for the previous version of an installation.

Cruise, I agree that they didn't say it was an upgrade version right up front, but when you read a little further, it clearly indicated it was an upgrade. That's one of the reasons I prefer links like the one Inland provided for you to Amazon. That one stated clearly that it was the full retail version, not an upgrade retail version. With E-Bay you often have to really watch the descriptions and protect yourself. I buy there every now and then, but I read everything VERY carefully.

Some time ago, you told us several times over at MM that you had a full retail version of XP that had not been installed on any other computer when we were trying to explain what was legal and what wasn't. Don't you still have that one?

The disc does not have to be bootable, all you have to do is insert it when prompted for proof of a prior version.

That disc was the one that came with the HP Compaq laptop - it was an OEM OS (XP_SP2) reinstallation disc. I never had a full retail version of XP, and I don't think the XP reinstallation disc that came with my Dell Dimension 8200 (it says "Dell" on the disc, so it may be an OEM version) qualifies as a full retail version of XP, either. So what do I do now? I can't send that disc back (too much of a hassle) and get my money back and go back and buy the one Inland linked to, can I?

Already I'm regretting buying this XP disc from ebay, and I haven't even tried it yet!

Ah, I see. You probably thought it was a full retail disk when we asked, but it really wasn't. You never explained that to us - you just said it was a full retail disk that wasn't installed on any other computer.

But from what Jenny and Inland say, you can use that 98 disk to show the XP Upgrade that you do have a previous version of Windows. You can't send it back, so you might as well give it a go. I say since you've already gone this far, you just just go for it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. In for a penny and all that...

It's really not that big of a deal. You just have to remove the XP CD and stick in an old Win98 CD in the CD drive at one point in the install to prove you have qualifying media. Then you take the Win98 CD out, put the XP CD back in, and continue with the install.

The biggest problem with installing XP is going to be the lack of AHCI/SATA drivers for XP. You may have to disable AHCI in the BIOS to get a usable install of XP. But you'd have that problem no matter whether your XP disc was a full version or an upgrade.

If you're going to be a tech, you have to get used to the fact that things are sometimes a little more complicated than you expected. That doesn't mean they're insurmountable. But the fact that Acer isn't supplying XP drivers for your laptop is going to complicate things.

You're right, Jenny, I like to master challenges - and having XP work with the hardware in my new laptop fits the bill. It'll give me hands on experience, and I want to tinker.

Anyway, I believe I found a site that has XP drivers for my laptop - check it out.

XP device drivers for Acer Aspire 5745G laptop

EDIT - I tried d/l a couple of these drivers, and the files say something like "chipset_Intel_9xxxxx_Win7x64 - what does this mean - are they lying to fool people?

That sounds like those are drivers for the computer's motherboard for Windows 7 x64 and not XP.

No luck finding XP drivers for my laptop model. But I did find instructions on how to create XP mode using VMWare Player in my particular Win 7 Home Premium OS -

How to create XP mode in Win 7 Home Premium

You may be able to find video drivers, sound drivers, network drivers, etc., if you look up drivers for the individual components instead of the laptop model number. You can find video drivers for nvidia cards at laptopvideo2go.com. For the sound card you'd look at the website of the manufacturer of your sound chip (Realtek or whatever it was). You can get the model numbers of your parts from what's listed in your Windows 7 install in Device Manager or ***System Information***.

You might also ask for advice on locating drivers over at http://forum.notebookreview.com/
They have a forum for Acer laptops as well as a forum for Windows OS and software. Someone over there may be able to offer you better suggestions than I can.

Jenny, since I thought that I wouldn't be able to locate XP drivers for my laptop's hardware (although I did think of going into Device Manager, making a list of the hardware by name/model piece by piece, and then going to that particular hardware manufacturer's site and d/l XP drivers there) as today I was too tired to take the time to check my hardware and hunt down the drivers, so I simply resized my C: Acer partition from 233 GB back to 452 GB after deleting the empty formatted partition (for XP).

Tomorrow I might take the time to check my HW and hunt down the drivers (before again shrinking drive C/creating a new partition for XP in my new laptop).

update on laptop -

as of now, i think i found xp drivers for all devices in my laptop except the hitachi hard drive, the slimtype dvd drive, the human interface device, the keyboard, the intel display audio (under game/sound/video controllers), the 41 items under system devices, and the 7 items under the universal serial bus controllers - but will I need xp drivers for these?


Does shrinking/deleting/expanding a win 7 partition count as hands-on expirence on the way to becoming a computer tech?

Before inserting the retail XP disc to put XP in the laptop, I went into the BIOS > Main > AHCI > AHCI mode/IDE mode and I changed the AHCI mode to IDE mode > F10 to save/exit and proceeded to install XP, and used Easy BCD to make the computer give me a choice to boot either into Win 7 or XP at next startup.

You may not. Especially for something like the DVD drive or keyboard. Sometimes generic Windows drivers work fine.

If you haven't checked for drivers at driverguide.com you might try there.


It's only one step of the process.

Gee, I didn't know about such places as driverguide - never even knew they existed.

So far I found that I don't even need a full retail Win XP (or earlier full retail Win OS from 95 - Win ME/XP/Pro) to do the fresh, clean install of XP on that empty partition I recreated on my Acer laptop's HDD - an upgrade CD (as long as it's an official disc from Microsoft) - will suffice in order to make the retail Win XP upgrade disc work for me.

Jenny, you never answered my question about the AHCI vs IDE mode - These Win 7 and Win XP choices were there at restart, but now (b/c the SATA is running in IDE mode) Win 7 will not start up normally. What will happen to Win XP if I go into the BIOS again and set the AHCI back to AHCI mode?

Do I have to d/l the Intel chipset ACPI x86 driver, the Dritek launch manager application, the ePower management application for XP?

Just curious Cruise - is this the error you're seeing when you boot windows 7?

STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE

If you set the AHCI back to AHCI mode, you'll probably be unable to boot to XP.

The problem with Windows 7 may not be the AHCI. It may be that EasyBCD failed. What was the message you got when you tried to boot to Windows 7? The ***instructions at sevenforums*** say:


If the problem is that EasyBCD failed, and you have no Windows 7 DVD, maybe you can borrow one. Or you could try creating a Windows 7 repair disc using the "Option 2" procedure ***here***.


If you can find them. If not, you'll just have to see how well XP works without them. The time to look for XP drivers is actually before you buy the laptop you intend to install XP on.

Ooooo - now you tell me! Anyway, I was searching in in vain for days looking for XP drivers after installing XP a couple of days ago. Then tonight I ran across Driver Detective, which scans your drivers (Win 7 64 bit) and you can tell Driver Detective you want the same drivers for XP (32 bit), and it'll find them for you, but won't let you d/l them untill after you buy the software for $30 (for a limited time) otherwise its $40, and register the software, and among the XP drivers Driver Detective found for my laptop's hardware, it did not find an NVidia GeForce GT 420M GPU driver - why didn't it? Or might it find that driver after I buy the software/register it?

But the nice thing about it is Mom agreed to let me buy Driver Detective for $30 just so I'll have an easy time of getting XP drivers for my laptop's hardware - think this may be my reward for tinkering with the laptop for the past 3 - 4 days nonstop!

I'm not familiar with Driver Detective. If you use it, let us know how it works out.

Did you check the driver detector at driverguide.com? You may have to log in to use it, but registration is free. You still have to have network drivers for the laptop to let it detect your components though.


I think people did try to tell you that lack of XP drivers could be a problem. Unfortunately you don't realize just how much of a problem unless things go wrong and don't work right without the drivers.


Did you check laptopvideo2go.com ?
They are THE place to go for laptop Nvidia drivers.
You could try these
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/28140-v26731-windows-xp-32bit-nvidia-desktop/

I've used Driver Detective and their driver library is very extensive, but $30 to be able to download drivers was ridiculous to me when I could find the drivers myself with a little work. But it is definitely convenient if you don't want to do the searching yourself. I can't remember for sure, but I sort of remember that $30 was only for one year. And, yes, in the very beginning you were told that XP drivers could potentially be a problem for you on this laptop when you decided you were going to install XP on it, no matter what.

Jenny, laptopvideo2go did not help me at all. Also, the video driver you found there for me was the wrong one. I am forced to use driver detective, and the driver agent (which I d/l and tried) isn't as good as driver detective - it scans my HW (on win 7) but it doesn't have any buttons to tell it to look for XP drivers for my HW like Driver Detective has.

The drivers from laptopvideo2go will sometimes ship with OEM specific INF's... Basically you just have to rename them in order for it to recognize your card.

You need to locate the documentation on their site to figure out the naming conventions for each OEM.

Edit -

It may not have any buttons - but it does allow you to enter the hardware string to find them.

NVidia Geforce GT 420 XP driver

Just d/l and tried this driver - but I got a message (when running the driver's setup program) saying it could not find any drivers compatible with my video card - it looks like it did not recognize my card (when booted into XP).

How do I enter the HW string if I don't know it - do I enter something like "Nvidia GeForce GT 420M"?

NVidia Geforce GT 420 XP driver

Just d/l and tried this driver - but I got a message (when running the driver's setup program) saying it could not find any drivers compatible with my video card - it looks like it did not recognize my card (when booted into XP).

The link below provides the INF naming conventions used by their drivers -

Reference List of NVIDIA's ODM/OEM INF naming scheme

You can locate your OEM string several ways, the easiest is under Device Manager (Display Properties) --



Simply transfer the info to the page below -

Driver Search