Hi all, I would to say first, during the last week I was working out several problems and I really appreciate these kind of forums and help during the desparation! I’m new on this so…
Finally after several days or almost a week I managed to install openSUSE 11.2 on my acer aspire 1810TZ, and actually I almost abandoned trying to work with linux during this time. Four years ago I tried to install a dual boot with win xp and had a similar sad story. But now that it works, I’m really eager to try this system out, finally!
I had win 7 on my aspire and wanted to make a recovery disc on USB, and as well install openSUSE from a USB in order to get a dual boot. These kind of small new computers (as well as netbooks) do not come with OS dvd/cd and do not have an optical drive just to mention. (Live USB stick - openSUSE works very fine to install linux from USB). It is probably impossible for the “normal” user to make a recovery disc for win 7 without an external dvd/cd drive…e.g. on a USB stick from two ISO files…I am still puzzled how to do this…didn’t find the answer in any forum…
I of course decided to find a way out of this without the need of buying an extra dvd drive for this small computer. Well I lost win7 during my try out operation…
I made a lot of mistakes. But finally the only way I could install SUSE from my live USB on the aspire 1810tz, was to change in the BIOS the SATA Mode from AHCI to IDE before installing linux and that works! I have no idea if in dual boot mode win 7 would work, does somebody know?
So this little info could save you maybe few hours of desperation…
AHCI mode is not usually an issue. winxp will not install with usually.
But I have it with openSUSE.
WIN7 works fine dual boot.
Backup of win7 should be possible, I would have thought windows would have a built in method for netbooks, so you could save backup as an image (.iso) to an external device.
It might also be possible with Clonezilla
Loosing WIN7 is no loss if you ask me. It could be re-installed if you can borrow a full dvd from someone and dd it to a flash drive. But you would need more kit to hand than you have now.
Reinstalling Win7 from retail DVD using OEM keys found on the laptop sticker is not so easy if you ask me. It would not Activate normally and you might have to phone M$ (which I never try anyway). Alternative ways to activate Windows using OEM keys can be found online but I’m not going to say it here due to obvious reasons.
I did recently acquire a notebook without CD/DVD rom and face similar situation. The Recovery Software that came with the laptop was nothing more than ****. I ends up imaging my entire hard disk using partimage found in SystemRescueCd. My hard disk capacity was 250GB, but used space for almost clean Win7 was ONLY 50GB :O, so i ended up with an image about that size. (Remember to back up the MBR as well)
Anyway I rarely boot Win7 these days. So I wonder if the whole imaging thing really worth my effort. Well… :\
The rumor is that Microsoft has been encouraging manufacturers NOT to distribute CDs/DVDs with new machines to discourage piracy. As if the need to register Windows wasn’t enough. Some manufacturers include a “restore” DVD that basically wipes the hard drive and does a fresh reinstallation. In fact, if you call a manufacturer’s support line, they’ll suggest this if they think anything is wrong with the installation (and don’t mention that you dual-boot some other OS with Windows, or they’ll probably refuse to support you outright).
It’s wrong, IMNHO, but that’s how it is.
When I received my new Compaq laptop a couple of years ago, before I could even run it, the HP Recovery utilities insisted that I insert about a dozen CDs to burn my own recovery set. I’ve still got them, but don’t ever plan to use them.
I guess that’s better than the so-called “recovery partition(s)” that some new PCs come with nowadays (essentially just a compressed copy of the Windows install DVD on a separate partition). When the hard drive fails, you’re basically hosed.
To repeat my never-humble opinion, I think this is just flat wrong, but that’s how most of them are doing it nowadays.
Well I agree, I’am quite disappointed from the manufacturer as well as win$7 that they actually didn’t include an easy possibility for creating a usb recovery, not mentioning, that even though you can make an iso image out of the two or three cd’s with a virtual DVD/CD software, there was no way for me to use both images from one bootable usb stick since the manufacturer software asks for several CD disks…
I don’t understand all this paranoid and annoying behavior against piracy with activation etc…the system is already expensive enough…
but well, it is how it is :P.
its my first day trying out openSUSE 11.2 and I actually appreciate it quite a bit:O. There are more possibilities to do things here, so lets see how long I will hold on Linux. I’m actually on the road till April so when I will go back home, I might even skip to install windows on this notebook as a dual boot and just stick to SUSE…well well
