ACER 5515 will not allow clean install of Win XP or Vista

gizmodave

 I am attempting to upgrade my fully functional but slow Acer 5515 to use for video capture (astronomy use)

I purchased a WD 320 GB Black HD which has been initialized, partitioned,& formated, using MBR option & NTFS.

When attempting to load Win XP the laptop generates an error stating that if a new drive or drive drivers have been installed to remove them and check for errors or virus. The drive is reported by WD drive tools as healthy and passes SMART checks on my desk top system. The drive is reported during BIOS load but does not seem to work after that. Is this a common issue? are there any tricks to get the OS loaded?

 I attempted to load win Vista and only got slightly further before the system locked up during the finalizing installation step, this happened 3 times.

gizmodave

The solution to my problem was a ten pound sledge hammer......

Seriously though I had to set the SATA mode to IDE Native vice AHCI, (tip posted in one of the many how to load XP threads) after that all went smoothly.

I now have a CLEAN install on a larger, faster HDD and none of the factory bloat to slow the system down.