I have an Asus EEE PC 900a netbook, which I'm trying to install XP on. The 900a is a little different to the bog-standard 900 in two areas: it's got an Atom inside with the Intel G950 chipset (so it runs Aero), and instead of a 4GB and a secondary 12GB SSD card (which the older 900's had), the 900a has one continuous 16GB SSD.
And that's what's giving me hell at the moment. When I run XP setup, the blue screen comes up with a 4GB disk (which I know is wrong), then says it can't format or re-partition it. I actually did an install with Windows 7 RC1 - the whole thing installed properly, then when I rebooted it, it didn't know where the boot sector was. I've now tried to install the recovery DVD to go back to Linux, and THAT failed. Nightmare.
My hunch is that the SSD needs some serious firmware-level formatting, but does anybody know where to get that sort of utility? Alternatively, can anyone suggest a way of me getting XP on there?
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Dawr - Thanks for your quick response. I figured that might be it - but I have no idea what SSD drive Asus have installed in there, and they don't seem too keen to share the information. Also, I think it's beyond that point, because Windows 7 can see the full 16GB - it just can't write to it (any more - it did once!). So I need something to just get that disk wiped properly.
Just let me tell how I did go this process myself. Wanted to install XP onto Asus EEE PC.
I have a license of Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 which is claimed to be able to migrate OS to different hardware.
My attempts to install XP directly to EEE failed and I was not going to spend much time and nerves for this.
I took image of my working XP workstation. The size of system volume is the same of smaller than size of EEE drive.
Then created bootable USB stick with Drive Backup 9.0 and booted Asus from it. There selected Normal mode - Drive Backup. Formatted the drive then right click on drive - restore from image. In wizard there was an option give - allow restore to different hardware. Ok, no problem, pointed to the image located on external USB drive and completed restore.
XP booted to Windows but found lots of new hardware. No problem, installed drivers and it is working.
I think if I had $1499 to spend on solving this, I'd buy myself a Carbon-Fibre Sony VAIO! :) My reckoning is that this is something to do with not being able to get the correct disk driver installed. After all, I installed W7 and ran it (briefly), but it just didn't survive a reboot. I've flipped the netbook upside-down, and written on the bottom was S4-SSD JM REV 1.1 P/N: 08G2021AB11F
Does anyone know where I can get a driver for that?
The Website isnt very helpful with coming up with the driver. another thought, some laptops have 2 different modes you can put the sata controller in. Some you can change from AHCI native mode or IDE mode. IDE mode, if you have it generally makes it easyier for XP to find the disk without drivers. Ive not seen the EeePc Bios, so am not sure if it can do this.
do you have a friend with an eeepc with xp on it? can you get ya hands on it long enough to ghost it?
Thanks, but I've worked it out. This is due to a problem with Windows 7 RC1. When you install it, it runs OK on the flash drive, but it does something to the firmware, because as soon as you reboot the EEEPC, it fails to find the boot sector. The clue that this has happened is when you look in the BIOS, your flash drive comes up as 'JM Loader 001' with capacity 4.2GB - not sure what it said previously, but it certainly wasn't that. And you can't install ANYTHING on there - not the Linux restore DVD or Windows XP.
This seems a problem peculiar to the 900a, i.e. an EEEPC with one contiguous 16GB flash drive rather than the traditional 4+12 setup. I suspect it'll become more of a problem as this setup becomes more standard.
Since there aren't any utilities to easily flash the firmware on that particular SSD drive that I can see, and since it was under warranty, I've sent the EEEPC back today. Still, I think this should stay posted up as a cautionary tale to others. Thanks for everyone's help on this one.
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by: DAWRPosted on 2009-08-20 at 03:05:53ID: 25140700
its probably a driver issue with xp. there will more than likly be some sort of sata raid controller onboard. get the sata drivers off the net, make the floppy disk (if your lucky enough to have a USB flash disk floppy drive itll be easy) and press f6 and load the drivers.