HOWTO Install Windows XP on Acer 4330

(Image courtesy of Raymond.CC)

I bought an Acer Aspire 4330 a few days ago, but I couldn't install Windows XP. I think it's designed for Vista, but I don't want to use it because it's unusable. Windows XP Setup coredumped after a minutes, and I thought I had to slipstream the installation CD to solve this. Fortunately, a friend told me that all I had to do was to change my SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. The setup then went smoothly.

Installing the drivers is a PITA. The drivers in the provided DVD doesn't work because they're for Vista. I had to download the files from their FTP site.

Unfortunately, they provide multiple drivers for the same device. Do I need to use the driver for Atheros? Or Broadcom? Or Intel? Blah.

I'll continue installing the drivers tomorrow. I still have to finish this router/load balancer that I'm making. Hopefully, our connection would become twice as fast after we combine Bayantel and Globe connections. More on this later.

Logging in to Unactivated Windows XP

I was looking for a way to log in to an unactivated Windows XP so that I could back up some files and load a few applications before I completely erase it from my partition.

I found this tip very helpful: http://tomorrowtimes.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-login-to-expired-windows.html.

It works.