• ¿Qué es DavidBayon.net?
• Perfil profesional
• Perfil personal
• Libro de visitas
• Contáctame

How to Install Microsoft Windows XP on an Acer Aspire 5920G Notebook

15 de abril de 2009 - Actualizado: 26 de abril de 2009 - 2935 lecturas - 1 comentarios - Categorías: Acer Aspire 5920G, English, Windows. - Posteado por David Bayón.

At this time we all know that Microsoft Windows Vista is like a black hole for computer resources, being the chosen of other operating systems (like Windows XP or Linux) the best answer for those who are worried about efficiency. The aim of this post is to explain clearly and step-by-step how to install Microsoft Windows XP on an Acer Aspire 5920G notebook.

Note: Before starting it is obvious that both a Microsoft Windows XP CD and its corresponding license are required. In case of not having this license you can either buy it or try another operating system like Ubuntu Linux (in my opinion better than any Windows version).

Note 2: If there are other operating systems already installed on the computer, the Windows XP installation will likely overwrite the boot loader, being necessary to recover it to be able to keep on using the rest of operating systems. In case of being Ubuntu Linux the previous OS installed, the boot loader “Grub” can be reinstalled using a live cd.

It is highly recommended to read completely the post before doing anything.

In general terms, the installation is divided into five parts:

(I) Downloading the required drivers: The first step is to download the following files:

Drivers part1.rar
Drivers part2.rar
Drivers part3.rar
Drivers part4.rar
Drivers part5.rar
Drivers part6.rar

The size of all these files is around 500 MB. All of them must be saved in the same folder and uncompressed. The result will be another group of compressed files that must be uncompressed as well (every one of them). All the uncompressed files must be copied on a CD-ROM or pen drive and will be used later.

(II) Creating a boot CD-ROM: (important) It is necessary to create a specific CD-ROM of Microsoft Windows XP to have the hard disk of the notebook detected during the setup. This step is really important because the default installation CD of Windows XP will not detect the SATA hard disk and say that there is nowhere to install the operating system.

For this purpose will be required to download three extra files:

(a) The Nlite software (click here for direct downloading).
(b) The hard disk drivers in text mode, that will be included in the installation CD-ROM. (The file must be uncompressed).
(c) The Windows XP Service Pack 3. This will save time later. (click here for direct downloading).

Once these files have been downloaded, the following steps describe the way to create the boot CD-ROM to install Windows XP. The pictures are in Spanish but I suppose that you will not have problems to apply them to your respective language:

1) Choose the source of the Windows installation files (in other words, the original Windows Installation CD).

2) Press “Next” (Siguiente) to move to the next window. Choose (in green) the following buttons: “Service Pack”, “Include drivers” (Integrar controladores) and “Create autoboot ISO” (Crear un ISO autoarrancable).

3) Click on “Select” (Seleccionar) to choose the downloaded Service Pack 3 file and then in “Next”.

4) Click on “Insert” / “Only driver” and select the first of the downloaded files for the hard disk drivers. In the following window select every file (keeping pressed the CTRL key) and click on “Next”.

5) Then we will be asked if we want to start the process. Obviously we must answer “yes” and click on “Next”. (The application will then indicate how much has been increased the size of the installation files compared to the default Windows Installation).

6) We reach the point were “Burn CD” must be selected. Click on “Next”. Note that this will be the CD-ROM used for the rest of the installation process.

(III) Creating the partition for Microsoft Windows XP: A new hard disk partition with NTFS (preferably) or FAT 32 file system must be created in order to be able to install Windows XP. If there are other operating systems already installed on the same hard disk a size of 25 GB should be enough. In this post (in Spanish) is described how to reduce the size of the Windows Vista partition.

(IV) Installing Windows: The BIOS must be configured to boot from the CD-ROM (these – in Spanish – are the instructions to do it). The rest of the Windows should be easy (you know, “Next”, “Next”...;)).

(V) Installing the drivers: Now it's time to install every driver copied on a CD-ROM or pen drive at the beginning. At the end we should have just one yellow question mark left on the “Device Administrator”, corresponding to the “Robson Memory” which is not used by Windows XP.

The way to open the “Device Administrator” is like follows: Right click on “My PC”, click on “Properties”, “Hardware” tab and “Device Administrator” button. This process is shown in the next picture.

Most of the drivers runs just executing the .exe files (setup.exe and so on) which are inside every folder previously uncompressed. Only the driver for the IR has to be installed “by hand”, with a right click on the question marked device, selecting “update driver” and choosing the place where it has been uncompressed.

At this time you should have your Acer 5920G running Microsoft Windows XP without any problem. Anyway, if you have any doubt or suggestion about this post, feel free to write it down on the comments.