Windows (XP/Vista) install locking up or just very slow...

[Tom]

I'm trying to install windows on my "new" laptop, the vista installer slowly gets to show a mouse cursor, but then seems to stall for a long time, the mouse won't move.. And I haven't had the patience to let XP get past the black screen just after the "setup is inspecting hardware". In both cases the HD light is on solid.

I assume it has something to do with the replacement drive I got, its a 160GB PATA 2.5", where the laptop's chipset specifically states a max of 120GB. Linux however supports it just fine, with DMA enabled, but only for the first 120GB, and the rest of the disk is accessed via PIO. (apparently linux says it can't use LBA48+UDMA to access the rest of the disk, so it falls back to PIO...) But it does work, and works just as well as it should.

Does anyone know of a way to "fix" windows to get it to work? It won't even start the installer, let alone boot. Not too interested in getting a new disk though, not much of an option, I'll have to "survive without" windows on my laptop if thats the only solution

[Tom]

Ok, its possible it might also be related to this laptop's buggy ACPI support, specifically the LAPIC support that the bios has disabled, and the OS is _supposed_ to respect, but can force re-enable, as I've attempted once in linux, and it cases the kernel to lock up solid

Is there a way to disable APIC, but keep ACPI in the windows installer? Disabling ACPI totally on a laptop just isn't acceptable (no hibernation, sleep, or other power management).

[Melbosa]

You have quite an interesting problem and not one I have ever experienced.  It may be related to the LAPIC being disabled, or to the over sized hard drive, a combination of the two, or something totally unlisted.  I know you probably don't want to do this, but your best bet is to reset the BIOS back to defaults, re-detect the hard drive, and see if it will go through the installer that way.  Laptops are usually either it works or don't work style install.

[Lazybones]

does the harddrive have a legacy compatible jumper setting?

[Tom]

I know you probably don't want to do this, but your best bet is to reset the BIOS back to defaults

Already done that, and managed to get the bios to update it's self, it wouldn't actually update the bios at one point, probably while there was no hd in it.

does the harddrive have a legacy compatible jumper setting?

I'm not sure. I'll have to check... The bios does show the drive as 137G as one would expect from a non LBA48 setup.

[Tom]

Ahh, looks like I managed it. Was disk related afterall.

First, I managed to boot the install disk by setting the laptop's hardrive to "removeable ATA". And once the install was done, it wouldn't boot, said the "device" wasn't found for some reason, so I changed back to "Auto (LBA)", and woot, it booted! So now I have 20GB dedicated to an OS I won't often use!

[Tom]

Interesting find, For regular use, linux at least matches window's battery life, if not surpasses it. On this cheap ass 4400mAh chineese LiIon (god I hope it doesn't blow up, luckily the majority of the heat in this laptop is generated on the opposite end, the battery stays comparitivly cool) I get about 3:00 to 3:30 hours on windows from a full charge, and at least that much from linux. It's not half bad. For a Athlon XP-M that is.