Changing SATA mode on Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-37K9

135

Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    Like all the versions before Win8x or Win10, many hardware devices in the A5 weren't invented yet during the Win7 era and before. Thus there are no native Win7 drivers for these devices. You may get some of them to partially work by running DriverBooster freeware but not very well.  

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    To be honest I'm extremely disappointed, I knew that 2000 and XP probably aren't going to work, but seeing how some people ran 2000 on other 2020 laptops made me think it was actually possible, it turns out it's probably impossible on Acer hardware because for any reason there is no Compatibility mode (on this model at least), it's probably time to give up on these two, but *****, Windows 7? For real, not only it can't find the drivers, the mouse doesn't even work in the setup, it could be fixable if not the fact that the BIOS doesn't have almost anything useful, guess I'll be stuck with Windows 10 that barely runs on Acer Aspire 5 for some quite more time

    It seems that this is just impossible on newer Acer hardware, because of how it probably was designed to support only 10

    btw, it's probably not becuase of too new hardware, this laptop is actually extremely low-end and should run 98SE with no problem, if only I would have the IDE SATA Mode

    If there could be a way to somehow simulate IDE mode and to slap USB 3.0 drivers in all the instalators, it would work flawlessly, slipstreaming drivers shouldn't be that much of a problem (maybe except for 2000), but the IDE SATA mode seems impossible to achieve looking at how limited the BIOS is, and that it doesn't even have a virtual mouse function (to fix the mouse in the setup)
  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    edited September 2021
    Aight, so right now I have everything ready, the only thing I need is to somehow have a IDE SATA Mode in the BIOS, or any other way to bypass Win2000 and XP setup not working on AHCI
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    I run Win98SE, WinXP, SuSE Linux & Win7 all on the same newer ACER laptop using VMWarePlayer. Most of the perfpherals run just fine under the host operating system. If you want to run quarter-century old operating systems that were mainly designed to run on x86 32-bit systems, then you have to make accomodations to run them on newer systems.

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    I run Win98SE, WinXP, SuSE Linux & Win7 all on the same newer ACER laptop using VMWarePlayer. Most of the perfpherals run just fine under the host operating system. If you want to run quarter-century old operating systems that were mainly designed to run on x86 32-bit systems, then you have to make accomodations to run them on newer systems.
    Ye I do know about VMs, but this laptop has 4GB of RAM, Intel Core i3 and a HDD, built in Windows 10, that of course because of the specifications barely runs, and of course that means VMs are laggy as hell too, if there is no way to make 2000 and XP64x, aight, I'll use a VM, but first I really need to get 7 to work, which I can't because of how limited this laptop is
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    Laggy? What do you mean by laggy? I have 4GB on a dual core netbook running VMWarePlayer with these 4 operating systems. I have no idea what you mean by laggy? I think it may be unrealistic to expect to natively run all the new hardware on a new laptop with these antique unsupported operating systems that are nearly 25 years old. I'm not quite sure what you think you can do with them systems that you can't do with Win10 or LinuxMint?

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    edited September 2021
    The biggest problem is the crappy BIOS in this laptop, it's very limited and the Legacy BIOS needs help from a tool like YUMI or Easy2Boot, as it can't even boot from a different device (which means if not YUMI or E2B it would be completely useless), which also made me realise why I couldn't boot anything when making a bootable USB on Rufus, because Rufus doesn't include any tools to run the system, it straight up runs from the BIOS, but because of how crappy the BIOS in this laptop is, it just gives a "No boot disk error" as it can't find any device, another pretty big problem is bad USB ports and no built-in CD/DVD drive, the USB ports support only Windows 8 and 10, which makes Windows Setup unable to find any files on the USB drive needed for the installation (install.wim for example), I could have maybe just burn a bootable CD/DVD, but as I said this laptop has no built-in drive, and external drives are, of course, plugged in by USB, also when I meant VirtualBox is laggy, I have only 4GB of RAM, Windows 10 takes about 3.5, and there is almost no space to even run Firefox on this point, not going to mention an entire Virtual Machine, and replying to "What these old systems can do that 10 can't?" Windows 10, as I already said a bunch of times is laggy as hell on these laptops, there isn't even a way to run Steam without making your entire laptop lag and make you wait 20 more times than you would do on Windows 7 for example, not going to mention the fact that it can't run more than a half of software

    All the eJays
    Sonic games
    Alot of FIFA games
    RollerCoaster Tycoon games
    Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas
    The Half-Life franchise
    Alot of Microsoft games
    Worms 3D and Worms Forts
    A good chunk of Need for Speed games
    Some Call of Duty games
    A bunch of Football Manager games
    GT Legends and the bonuses
    Some Battlefield games
    Trucks&Trailers
    Sony UMD
    SUPER
    And alot of other software that will take hours to list, the list is GIGANTIC

    In short Windows 10 can't run almost anything made before 2014 without some fanmade rewrites or importing some drivers

    It has problems with even opening the explorer, as it lags even on the desktop, also I'm not the only one that has these problems with 10 on Acer hardware, let's just be honest, newer doesn't always mean better, and 10 is a great example of that, the previous Windows versions are a TON better

    That's why I want to have at least Windows 7, but these laptops are so limited, that it seems impossible to do without straight up buying an entire new laptop
  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    My bad, it's not the laptops fault with the Legacy BIOS, but still, the BIOS options suck, if there only would be more options like Virtual USB and the IDE mode it would be so easy and already done
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    >>>the USB ports support only Windows 8 and 10,>>>

    Sorry, the UEFI bootstrapper initializes the USB ports.

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    >>>the USB ports support only Windows 8 and 10,>>>

    Sorry, the UEFI bootstrapper initializes the USB ports.

    Yeah my bad, realized after I already couldn't edit lol
  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    Aight, everything is ready, after lots of research, it turns out that Windows 2000 works only on IDE drives, so it will be impossible to isntall it on this laptop, the same goes with XP64x (which makes the SATA driver option useless) so I decided to dual-boot Windows XP 86x (if for some reason that won't work, I'll try the Integral Edition Mod) and Windows 7 64x, however there is a giant problem, both Windows XP and 7 will require a MBR disk, while mine is GPT, converting will require me to wipe out the entire disk (which I of course don't want to happen cuz I will lose my game data, music etc. (I could slap it on a pendrive if not the fact it's 300GB of data)), so is there any way to prevent that or to force it to install on GPT? Also is there a way to slap in USB 3.0 drivers while multibooting? I could use the Intel tool, but it works only for Win7, and only for non multibootable USB (for example one made with Rufus)
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    We seem to be going in circles on the MBR vs GPT HDD. We discussed this earlier in detail. Windows versions prior to Win8 can only be booted from an MBR partitioned boot drive in legacy BIOS. You can however install Win10 and Win8 on an MBR partitioned drive in legacy BIOS but it will be limited to 4 primary partitions, one of which must be a system-reserved FAT32 partition.

    I suggest that you buy another HDD to experiment with these earlier Windows versions. The WesternDigital WD10SPZX 1TB SATA3 drive is less than $50usd and will work just fine in your laptop. If you continue to experiment with MBR & legacy BIOS you risk losing everything on the existing GPT partitioned drive.

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    Aight, the XP installation doesn't bluescreen, and actually takes me to the beginning, there is a big problem though, even though my drive is MBR and I have the DPMS (built in Easy2Boot) F6 drivers and press F5 and F7, the Windows installation doesn't see my drive, and throws the "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer." error, this can't be because of too new hardware, as this laptop was manufactured around 2016, and the drivers work even on 2021 laptops, also the Windows 7 setup, even with the GIGABYTE USB 3.0 Tool used to add the drivers to the .wim files, it still throws the error that no CD/DVD drivers were found
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    >>> the Windows installation doesn't see my drive,>>>

    If you're referring to Win10, that's because you must create an MBR partitioned Win10 installation USB pendrive for legacy BIOS or UEFI CSM. The Microsoft USB Media Win10 Creation tool won't do that. You must download the Win10 iso and use Rufus.

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    edited September 2021
    The Windows XP setup now fully works and I'm ready to install it! The only problem is the USB 3.0 drivers not working in the Windows 7 setup, Imma try running the tool from GIGABYTE again
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    Ready to install what?

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    Ready to install what?
    Windows XP
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    Do you mean the USB WinXP installation pendrive?

    Jack E/NJ

  • VyZi
    VyZi Member Posts: 55 Troubleshooter
    edited September 2021
    Windows XP is installed and working perfectly with no errors! Windows 7 tho, even with the GIGABYTE drivers, still throws the no CD/DVD drivers error, I don't get what's the problem anymore, that could be easily fixed by setting the USB ports to 2.0, but of course that function isn't in the BIOS 
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,870 Trailblazer
    Good luck with whatever you're trying to do.

    Jack E/NJ