(soon to be) a new owner of an Aspire One!

I'm excited, its been quite a while since I've been on here. Back then, I remember "I'm getting this pretty soon.." "I"m gonna hold off".. "this is definitely what I'm getting", etc.. But I officially ordered one finally. From Woot. getting the 751h-1948.

But anyway. I don't THINK I would consider myself a newbie to netbooks, because I've done so much studying in the past, but I might need a little refresher course. I know the first steps upon getting a netbook.. remove bloatware, upgrade RAM, etc etc. But there is one thing I'm wondering. It seems like windows7 is the definitive way to go. I just have a couple of questions. First and foremost, am I still going to have to buy an external dvdROM, or can I get a legitimate copy on a flash drive? if I'm not mistaken, a while back Mircosoft was considering making flashdrive copies for netbook users. I've read about and even tried to make bootable ISO's on flash drives, but never had any luck whatsoever..

So yeah, I've got more questions, but that's all other stuff.. for now this is all I need to know...

 

Just follow the instructions about creating a 7 USB flash drive on these forums. Or use the instructions below which worked a treat for me. I followed the 'under vista' instructions. I had to right click 'my computer', manage, disk management, to obtain the drive letter for the stick.

Install a clean Windows 7 from usb stick

Hello, maybe many of you know how to install Windows 7 from a usb stick but maybe some don't know so i make here a fast and easy guide

The install process is the same as vista

1. Grab a iso of a Windows 7 Release (google is your friend)
2. If you are under vista you can use diskpart method, if you are under xp you wil need a bootsect.exe file and paragon partition manager.

Direct upgrade without any usb:
If you are under vista you can upgrade but be careful cause if you use a different version (e.g: vista basic and your project is to upgrade to windows 7 ultimate it will NOT work)

Under Vista:

Download a iso of windows 7 and extract it usig winrar

For easy use we will extract the content of the iso to C:\W7

Once all the files from the iso are in the C:\W7 folder, go to menu start and launch cmd (command prompt)

in there enter:
Code:
diskpart

A new window should appear, enter the following commands:

disk list (it will show you the disks attached to your computer, make sure you see your usb in there by checking the amount of space it has)

select disk 1 (if 1 is your usb of course otherwise give the right number)
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
exit

That's done your usb is ready and bootable, now we have to copy the files from C:\W7

in the cmd again excute this command:
Code:
xcopy C:\W7\*.* /s/e/f X:\
(Where X is your usb key, replace it with yours)

This will take some time to complete,once done, start over your computer and set in bios to start from usb key or use the boot menu by F9 in the hp mini note.

That's it enjoy your install

Under xp:

Download a iso of windows 7 and extract it usig winrar

For easy use we will extract the content of the iso to C:\W7

Get paragon partition manager (again google is your friend)
Format the usb and make a primary partition and make it active, don't forget to apply all the changes in paragon so its done right.

use this bootsect, download it extract it somewhere in C:\

go into start then run and enter: cmd

go where bootsect.exe is and type:
Code:
bootsect.exe /NT60 X:
(where X is your usb key, replace it with yours)

once that done you should see a message that bootcode has been installed successfully in the target drive.

in the cmd again excute this command:
Code:
xcopy C:\W7\*.* /s/e/f X:\
(Where X is your usb key, replace it with yours)

This will take some time to complete,once done,that's it restart your computer and start over usb, enjoy your install

Thank you for following this guide, google helped me alot some time ago when i needed this. credits to the people who released those methods over the net.

 

First, yes, Win7 is ABSOLUTELY the way to go.

I can't tell you what a huge performance increase it gave me over Vista.

Second, Microsoft has already done all the work for you. I used this very utility to make a bootable USB stick and install 7 on my 751: http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

 

fauxpas, the release is the version that will expire after a certain amount of time, right? Yeah, google is my friend, but TPB is a better friend for me, I just havent looked for w7 there. Is it worth spending either $120 for home premium or $200 for professional with XP Mode for a netbook, or would tiny7 (or any other variant) suffice? I'm not worried about hard drive space (160GB is 4 times as much as I've had on previous computers/laptops, and I've never filled up a hard drive).. my concern is, I only paid 250 for the netbook, do I want to double that on upgrades alone(ram, new OS, etc)? Its not hard to figure out what I bought the netbook for (refer to second sentence on THIS post).. I'm also a big fan of hulu and youtube..

 

You'll be disappointed if you are buying the Acer for hulu or youtube. Video is NOT the strong suit of the Acer. Discounting video, it does a fairly good job for internet cruising.

Just one man's opinion...

 

Video is ok (with the right drvers and codecs) but flash video is not as it uses the CPU not the GPU apaently.

 

Wrong. The original writer of that 'how to' wrote it while different versions were being 'released' quite often, so to not worry about a particular version, he refers to any release. This includes retail. Any 7 iso.

 

Well, today is the day supposedly. I'm (im)patiently waiting for FedEx to show up. Also, I have Tiny7 on my flash drive waiting for it. I don't know if I even want to start it up with XP first. just go ahead and plug in the flash drive, start it up and commence to installing. But then again, if something screws up, and I lost XP and can't install 7, then I'm screwed all around until I can cough up even more money for upgrades/replacements.

Here are my plans so far:
upgrade BIOS
Tiny7
2GB ram upgrade (Is the Kingston ddr2, 667MHz, 200 pin, from walmart good? I've read a lot about the 11.6 being picky with RAM, and just wanted to know.)
Schticker, lapjack, or something along those lines
looking for a small "netbook" sized mouse that isn't going to make my hand cramp up. sedveral years ago, I bought a USB "presenter" mouse that had a trackball and just two buttons, and you held it in your hand sort of like a Wii nunchuck... may try to find another one of those..

NOTE: from what I recall, these have a SD slot on the right side. I've got a 4GB microSD card with an adaptor, can someone give me some advice about what I can use that for? I would like to have Tiny7 installed on that, and keep the original XP on the harddrive, and let both OS's share the HD, but i dont know if i can run an OS from the SD slot

 

If I were you, I'd go straight to 7. It runs so ridiculously fast on my 751, it is unbelievable. I can only imagine that Tiny7 would be even better.

And what would go wrong during the install? Don't worry about it....if you know what you are doing (and it seems like you do) you will install 7 just fine. Frankly, if you were able to find a copy of Tiny7, you can also find a copy of XP to install if you want, but after you try 7 you won't want to....

As far as the RAM goes, check the huge thread on this issue & see what brands people have had luck with, as you are right & it seems that the 751 is picky about the exact make & model of RAM.

As far as your mouse, I got one of these and absolutely love it: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouse ... px?pid=013

The "nano" USB adapter sticks out a bit, but seems to be smaller than the Logitech version. I leave it in all the time and haven't had any problems with it snagging or anything. The mouse itself is great, very nice, only $40.

The card reader is used for transferring photos & other files to your computer. Yes you sure can install an OS to a memory card & boot and run the computer off it, but I'd be careful as cards have limited read/write cycles and I had one that just decided to freak out on me for no reason & I had to reformat it. It wasn't a big deal at all as I had copies of the files on there, but it would have sucked if I had important stuff on there, obviously.

Just pick one OS & stick with it. I highly recommend 7. I don't want to put my 751 down because it works so well now!