Acer Aspire 5720 and XP?(downgrade from Vista)

[Mini-Me]

An interesting story...

A client gave me this model laptop today, with the express instructions that: "Get rid of that &!@%!* Vista, and install a copy of XP please."

I laughed at the SINCERITY of his comment.

When I asked him what the problem with Vista was, he replied: "Just about everything. Nothing works - all the applications I used to use don't $!@$% work under Vista, and the $@%! is just a @%!^@* of a system."

Well, the funnies aside, does anyone know if this model Acer can run XP?
I told him that Acer are of the the few who have Vista-only BIOS's, and as such, it might be impossible to install XP on this laptop, so before I start, I thought I would ask if anyone here knows if you can install XP on this laptop.

The Acer website is not very helpful...

[Rick]

yes it can be done

Under vista and or system doc's
get the exact hardware spec

Then get all the needed drivers
This may force you to vista each chip makers site

I did it with a Toshiba and an older Acers ( as in 1 year ago)
Todate the ONLY hardware not supported in XP is the modem.
It's one of those internal combo sound/modem chips
Don't care about the modem Never use it

[classicsoftware]

I would ask the user to be more specific specific than:

"Just about everything. Nothing works - all the applications I used to use don't $!@$% work under Vista, and the $@%! is just a @%!^@* of a system."

I just got a Travelmate 5720 and it came with Vista and an XP downgrade. They supplied the XP discs. The only reason I downgraded to XP was my daughters college prefers XP. Now mind you this is a Core 2 Duo 2 ghz and 2 GB of RAM. It's Vista Business and I can tell you Vista ran great. It was fast. Faster boot time and shutdown time than XP. Apps ran quickly. The wireless network detection is way better than XP. I did not try printers or any other hardware. Right out of the box it was a great experience.

Anyway, my point is, if this is a hardware problem it will remain with XP. The answer is always focus on the problem.....

[Mini-Me]

This may force you to vista each chip makers site

That's the only part of your reply that I don't understand.
I will make a start then...

[Mini-Me]

I would ask the user to be more specific specific than:

I just got a Travelmate 5720 and it came with Vista and an XP downgrade. They supplied the XP discs.

Same here, ONCE I PHONED HIM UP after reading yours and Rick's replies.
When I asked him about any and all CD's or DVD's he got with the machine, there was the XP downgrade option CD, so I have got it from him.

As to the "Quote" I put up here, I know he was not being very specific, but the anger and frustration in his voice was so funny, I just put it in for laughs!
:D

He was trying to use the laptop to run his community radio station, using Zara Radio automation software, which won't run under Vista, so he spent several hours trying to get Zara Radio up and running, before discovering on the net that ZR won't run under Vista at all. That and he says the performance is lacking - the machine is slow and sluggish.

[Mini-Me]

Well, I've tried to install XP, but upon booting up, the installer says there are no hard-drives installed in this machine, which is total bull, as there most certainly is one - the BIOS sees it, and Vista has to use it. It is a SATA drive, but so long as the BIOS can see it, then the XP installer should be able to as well, I would have thought, as this is a BIOS-level event, not a 3rd-party SATA card which might need drivers...

Any ideas?

ADDITIONAL: OK, found out that I DO need drivers for the SATA for the XP install to work.

Does anyone know if the SP3 for XP has SATA support, as I could make a new XP install CD with SP3 slipstreamed into it, if that would help...

[mjc]

It is a SATA drive, but so long as the BIOS can see it, then the XP installer should be able to as well, I would have thought, as this is a BIOS-level event, not a 3rd-party SATA card which might need drivers...

Any ideas?

Nope...remember that XP came out long before SATA was finalized...it still, even after SP3, does not include native SATA drivers to get it up and running. You need to install them during the install (when it says, Hit F6 to install SCSI...blah...blah). This is for everything, not just add-in cards. Or set the BIOS to IDE compatibility mode (if available, and since this is a laptop, it may not have that option).

Vista, being post-SATA, has native drivers and can 'see' a SATA hard drive during the install.

Look on the CD, there may be SATA drivers tucked away somewhere...

[Mini-Me]

Nope...remember that XP came out long before SATA was finalized...it still, even after SP3, does not include native SATA drivers to get it up and running. You need to install them during the install (when it says, Hit F6 to install SCSI...blah...blah). This is for everything, not just add-in cards. Or set the BIOS to IDE compatibility mode (if available, and since this is a laptop, it may not have that option).

Vista, being post-SATA, has native drivers and can 'see' a SATA hard drive during the install.

Look on the CD, there may be SATA drivers tucked away somewhere...

You are so right/
:)

I found a driver disk download, and as I have a USB FDD, I put the disk in, booted from the CD-ROM, and pressed [F6] when prompted, then loaded the highlighted driver, and pressed [ENTER] to continue.

Oh no...
:(

Same error - darn...
:(


So, I rebooted, did the [F6] thing again, and when prompted, I loaded ALL the drivers(about 5 I think), one by one, and then the system DID see the drive, and I was able to delete all the Vista partitions, and repartition the drive for XP, and the install is now underway...
:)

[Mini-Me]

OK, we are now locked in a continuous boot-loop.
The XP install completed, then rebooted.
At this point, we get a shot of the XP boot-up logo, then a VERY SHORT shot of a BSOD, but there is no way to even read the first character of the message, before the system reboots again, and we are now locked into a continuous rebooting sequence...

I shut the machine off.

Any ideas why it would be doing this?

ADDITIONAL - Attempting to boot into SAFE MODE when the menu appears on the screen("Windows failed to start correctly"), results in a freeze, BSOD and auto-reboot when attempting to load MUP.SYS. I have no idea what the error reported with the BSOD is - it is on the screen for perhaps one 6th of a second - no time to read it - it just reboots endlessly at that point.

Help?

SOME MORE INFORMATION: During the install of XP, the system reboots - it loads as usual from the HDD at that point, allows configuration and setup, then reboots when finished, then upon reboot, falls into the endless reboot loop. Don't know if this is relevant, but thought I would mention it.

[Mini-Me]

I seem to have fixed it - I tried each of the 5 or so SATA drivers included in the driver disk one by one, but not the default one, nor did I load all of them as I did before. The 2nd one down from the default one(which does not work) seemed to work, and the machine now boots into XP. Obviously, you have to pick ONE driver, not all of them(in the hope that the install will work out which one is the right one by itself). Anyhow, thought I would post that things seem to be OK for the moment...

[mjc]

That reboot loop smelled of driver problems...glad you got it figured out.

[Rick]

That's the only part of your reply that I don't understand.
I will make a start then...

Sorry about the typo
it should have read

"This may force you to visit each chip makers site "

You have it running
Lucky You
Not as large a hassle as it could have been

[Mini-Me]

Sorry about the typo
it should have read

"This may force you to visit each chip makers site "

You have it running
Lucky You
Not as large a hassle as it could have been

Heh heh, makes more sense now!!!
;)

Don't misunderstand me, Rick, it WAS a pain to get up and running, only because I have never had to manually load SATA drivers before on ANY install of XP - even on machines with SATA drives as the XP boot drive, as the BIOS in those machines emulated IDE-mode for the SATA ports(4th IDE master, 5th IDE master, 6th IDE master, etc...), but this laptop does not.

BUT, I got it going now, and have as of now, downloaded and installed all the XP drivers for this laptop, and it goes like a rocket now - much speedier then Vista.

Although, I have to say after playing with Vista(home basic) for a day or so before I did all this, that there are merits to the GUI etc in Vista - it is very cute from a visual point of view, but even I got so angry, after only one day, with the speed problems and constant "Program X is trying to do something I think it should not: Cancel or Allow?"

I have to be honest here, and say that once I got the correct SATA driver loaded, deleting the Vista partitions gave me a sort of perverted pleasure...
;)

[Rick]

I have to be honest here, and say that once I got the correct SATA driver loaded, deleting the Vista partitions gave me a sort of perverted pleasure...
;)

Beeen therrre done that :)

Took me a year to get all the drivers for my laptop and remove Vista:mad:

When it was finished I wanted to use the Vista disk for target practice at the range the following weekend

perverted pleasure and a pound of revenge at 100 yards with 200 grans of lead :D

[mjc]

perverted pleasure and a pound of revenge at 100 yards with 200 grans of lead :D

I prefer a bit closer range and yelling "Pull!"

[X_Splinter]

Mini-Me i am trying to do the same thing you did to my aspire 5720.

So can you please please please send me the Sata driver you used???
:confused:

[Mini-Me]

WELCOME TO THE PC GUIDE!!!

You can download it for yourself at this link:

http://cahya.prastyanto.googlepages.com/driversata5720.zip

And this link is very useful, and contains other links to all the other drivers you will need to get your 5720 working on XP.

http://komku.blogspot.com/2008/02/acer-travelmate-5720-windows-xp-driver.html

BE VERY AWARE, that loading the SATA driver is critical - you get to choose from about 4 different drivers in the package, and in my case, the default highlighted one DID NOT WORK correctly - read the rest of this thread if you have not already done so.

Also, just to recap - DON'T load all the drivers hoping one will work - it won't.

You MUST select one AND ONLY ONE driver for it to work.

In my case, it was the next one down the list from the highlighted one, but you will just have to try them one at a time, and see what happens.

I put the drivers(unpacked from the ZIP file) onto a floppy disk, and then used an external USB floppy-disk-drive to access the drivers during setup.
You could probably use a USB flash-disk instead of a USB floppy-drive if you don't have the USB drive, although, I never tried it that way.

GOOD LUCK, and please post back with the results.
:)

[dsl101]

WELCOME TO THE PC GUIDE!!!

You can download it for yourself at this link:

http://cahya.prastyanto.googlepages.com/driversata5720.zip

And this link is very useful, and contains other links to all the other drivers you will need to get your 5720 working on XP.

http://komku.blogspot.com/2008/02/acer-travelmate-5720-windows-xp-driver.html

BE VERY AWARE, that loading the SATA driver is critical - you get to choose from about 4 different drivers in the package, and in my case, the default highlighted one DID NOT WORK correctly - read the rest of this thread if you have not already done so.

Also, just to recap - DON'T load all the drivers hoping one will work - it won't.

You MUST select one AND ONLY ONE driver for it to work.

In my case, it was the next one down the list from the highlighted one, but you will just have to try them one at a time, and see what happens.

I put the drivers(unpacked from the ZIP file) onto a floppy disk, and then used an external USB floppy-disk-drive to access the drivers during setup.
You could probably use a USB flash-disk instead of a USB floppy-drive if you don't have the USB drive, although, I never tried it that way.

GOOD LUCK, and please post back with the results.
:)

Not sure if anyone is still reading this thread, but just in case it helps, I simply went into the BIOS on my Aspire 5720 and changed the SATA controller from AHCI mode to IDE mode. Then the normal XP install works fine. You can install the AHCI drivers and switch back once everything is up and running.

Now I just need to get wireless and audio working :) The komku blog makes lots of reference to the Travelmate 5720 rather than the Aspire 5720 - not sure if that makes a difference, but will give it a go!