Installing Windows 7 on older notebook

[tomasz86]

I wonder if there's any way to install Windows 7 on this computer:

Samsung SENS Q10

Pentium III-M 933 MHz

640 MB PC133 SDRAM

Samsung HDD (IDE)

The installation runs correctly but after so there's a BSOD at the first booting of the system:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

The BIOS in this system is not fully ACPI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for an updates BIOS.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000A5 (0x00000011, 0x00000003, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

In the BIOS there are no setting related to ACPI and there has been no BIOS updates available for this model so I guess it indeed may not be ACPI compliant. On the other hand there are no problems with 2000/XP running with ACPI HAL enabled on it.

Are there any workarounds which may be useful in this case?

[tomasz86]

I can also add that Safe Mode works.

[jaclaz]

Try removing some RAM or "switch it" with some other:

http://www.channelprosmb.com/blog/entry/1698/The-ACPI-BIOS-in-this-system-is-not-fully-compliant/

jaclaz

[tomasz86]

I've already seen that post but I don't think it'll apply here. In that case all of XP, 2000, Vista & 7 refused to start but here it's only related to 7 (I don't know about Vista).

Also removing memory isn't really an option because the notebook has only 128 MB integrated and the one stick which can be removed is a 512 MB one.

Edited October 13, 2011 by tomasz86

[jaclaz]

Also removing memory isn't really an option because the notebook has only 128 MB integrated and the one stick which can be removed is a 512 MB one.

It wasn't intended as an "option", but rather as a "test".

Generally speaking (not necessarily Windows 7) NT "setup/install" is VERY PICKY about the hardware, p<rticularly to RAM, and once the system is installed, IN SOME CASES you can re-add the RAM and everything works allright.

Even more generally the accent was on the "lesson learned", do not bypass standard troubleshooting, no matter what the Windows Error is.

Since you have not many trouble-shooting possible on a laptop (exception made for removing the RAM stick) it could also be a very quick troubleshooting session .

In that case all of XP, 2000, Vista & 7 refused to start but here it's only related to 7 (I don't know about Vista).

You mean should have refused .... I got that 2K and XP were installed OK on that system.

Though similar, each different NT system version may well behave differently.

jaclaz

[tomasz86]

I managed to install Windows 7 using a clean source without any updates integrated. I don't know what exactly what causing that BSOD but it works nevertheless. Surprisingly it's quite usable even though it's just a Pentium III (Tualatin).

On the other hand I also tried installing Windows 8 Developer Preview and it worked terribly slow.

[sarmad93]

the same problem was with me.i was trying to install windows 7 on my older pentium 4 it gave me blue bsod during installation saying that bios is not acpi compliant.

only solution to this problem is you should update your bios.download the latest version of bios from your netbook manufacturar site.....

[dencorso]

For Win9x, you could install without ACPI (KB186111): Setup /p i

Can one still do it with Win 7?

Win XP has a non-ACPI hal and kernel pair so I think that might be the way to go, if one such hal and kernel is stil avilable for Win 7.

bcdedit should have the equivalent of /KERNEL and /HAL boot.ini switches to allow for selecting kernel and hal.

Moreover I think ACPIOption=2 in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Detect still is avilable and works.