Drivers etc. for new 5672

Drivers...

Most of the drivers I have come from ACER. The one driver I do recommend you updating to is a third party video driver. I have the Omega drivers, but there is another one out there. Search the forums for the name. Read the instructions prior to upgrading.

Not a driver issue, but you might want to buy a laptop cooling pad. It will definitely increase longevity of your system.

Danger - Will Robinson; DANGER!

I got my new 5672WLMi on May 28th from CompUSA in Little Rock, AR on sale with $150 rebate. They only had two in stock. I have spent most of the week trying to get it set up for my specific software and usage. This unit is FLAKEY!

Config: T2300 1.66 Duo, 120gb Toshiba HD, 2gb 533mhz RAM, XP-Home.

It did not come with any solid documentation, any installation disks, or much support, but I'm a bit of a techie anyway so I wasn't worried. My suspicions are that the Toshiba hard drive is the main culprit in the problems I am having - the installation has hosed itself on three occassions, requiring me to restore the factory config and start over! If I had deleted what you term the "stupid partitions" there would have been NO WAY I could have restored the system and would have been dead in the water.

If you have FULL OS installation disks, then no big deal - I don't. The disks that the 5672 has you make when you first set up the system DO NOT have the XP CAB files - those stay on the hard drive in a hidden partition and are simply accessed by the restore program/disks to reinstall the OS, the specific ACER software & drivers. Therefore, without the service partition, no reinstallation of the original OS or anything else.

Yeah, I am a bit miffed at my experience getting this unit up to task, but I really like the design, the control layout, and the overall performance & features it offers. This is my 4th NB, having a Gateway, a Toshiba, and two Dells previously. The 5672 puts those all to shame in every aspect EXCEPT this OS or hard drive problem, so I am willing to work dilligently to establish a stable system that will serve me until I can afford to upgrade to a better, higher quality and faster hard drive (NOT Toshiba!) and the new Windows VISTA OS.

Hope your mileage varies ....

Hi Brotherwes,
I don't think this statement is completely accurate, I have a 5672 and burned a DVD as nagged by the computer. I later removed the hidden partition on my original drive and successfully restored using this disk. I just tested it on a spare drive that never had the hidden partition on it. Success also, as a matter of fact the install routine copies the i386 folder to the root of c: which is in fact the folder where all the XP cabs are on the full XP
install cd's.
The hidden partition is there for reinstall using the eRecovery feature from within Windows as well as making recovery disks. If you remove the partition/data the eRecovery feature will fail. But you can still use the recovery DVD/CD's you made earlier. The DVD/CD's are made using the hidden partition data.
When I bought my machine I anticipated this,as the salesman confirmed
no install CD, so I bought a retail copy of XP Pro at same time. That is what I
have installed now without the Acer crap. My machine also shares the drive with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (linux) and dual boots flawlessly. All in all I like this machine.

Once again, strikes the folly of listening to the resident CompUSA staff technician. I figured he had seen a lot more to these than had I. Therefore I took his word. Goes to prove the value of forums such as this and the generousity & Experience of others. Thank you for the correction.

I had searched my hard drive for cab files using the find function and came up null - I'll do a manual search now that I have the direction to look. I have Powerquest Partition Magic v.8, and Drive Image v.7 and tried to image the hidden partition to a DVD, but it appears this version only recognizes CD-r's and CD-rw's, not DVDs.

Since the HD is still acting a bit flakey, I'd like to have a full back-up copy of the ACER software "just in case" - the Arcade is a waste, but the energy management, admin and security stuff I find useful.

Frank - any more words of wisdom? I can't afford a full XP-Pro license, and don't mind waiting for the VISTA and a better HD purchase in a few months. I can make do with the XP-Home until then, so long as I can establish a reasonably stable system. I am not a gamer, just a poor struggling digital photographer.

My humble appreciation for the clarifications
Wesley

the new broadcom/widcomm bluetooth drivers are total shit, they dont even work, bluetooth mice keep disconnecting when they are idle, the stack is crippled, missing half the services, stupid widcomm basically turned the stack into an MS stack. yet the MS stack can keep a constant connection with both the logi MX900 mouse and MS's own BT mice.

Hi Wesley,
No surprise there about Compusa techs or Compusa marketing geniuses.
They sell alot of Acer notebooks and other notebooks that use SATA hard drives,
but they don't stock any SATA notebook drives. If you need to replace drive
check out these people http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi-bi...0&type=Slaptop
I have used these people to purchase a spare Seagate Momentus 120GB SATA for my machine (my machine came with a Seagate drive).
Maybe that is why I haven't had problems. These folks are great. I use the spare drive to Ghost a copy of my stable install
via USB enclosure so that I have a solid backup. I have XP Pro installed without the Acer crap.
Anyway, did you make a recovery disk(s) when the system nagged you. If you didn't make one now. You should be able to
using the eRecovery feature. That way if your HD fails you can use the recovery disk(s) to restore to a new HD.
If you have the disk(s) you can restore any HD to factory new installation, even if the hidden partition is not there. I don't
think there is a way to easily copy the hidden partition to a new drive. You should know that on my machine the first reboot
ejects the DVD. When the machine restarts and continues the install it tries to install drivers (the hardware wizard pops up)
but the files needed are on the disk. If this happens to you reinsert disk and using wizard dialog box browse to D:\\PATCH\\VGA\\ATI\\DRIVER\\2KXP_INF\\B_29799 where D:\\is your CD/DVD drive. When your computer reboots from now on during install
it shouldn't eject disk and find all the files it need from there. Not a very elegant solution but it works. Of course your
machine may be different. At the end you will have a shiney new XP home install with all hardware drivers and Acer crap.
BTW, if you ever do a clean install with a XP install disk all the drivers you need are at
http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/for...d=3394#results
enter you computer data in search tool and it will take you to driver site.
Hope you made that/those disk(s).
Acer should be able to replace the HD for you, after all you are under warranty.
Good luck. If you have any questions feel free to reply here.

A bit of a shame some of you actually bought a Windows CD when you can easily burn one yourself from the stuff Acer put on your HD or recovery disks in the first place.

You could have bought a decent imager (ghost/acronis/whatever) to image both the recovery partition (including saving the MBR) and your stable install for approx 25% of the price.

Cheers

Drio

Thanks for the info Drio but HOW?
Are you saying that you know how to compile a copy of XP home, like the MS factory disk, using the info on the Restore disk/partition? I was not able, when my machine was new and I hadn't removed the hidden partition to get Ghost to backup the hidden partition.
I use Ghost 9 to make a copy of my stable install. I do this to a spare HD temporarilly mounted in a USB enclosure. BTW Ghost documentation and their tech support don't mention that you have to Ghost to freshly formatted partition without a drive letter assigned to it. If you don't the drive won't boot. After Ghosting I install drive in a spare HD caddy and run in my machine
to make sure it is OK. Then I use partimage on my Linux Rescue CD to "ghost"
a stable copy of Ubuntu linux to the HD. I then set this HD aside for a "rainy day", this is my backup.
Anyway I wanted a copy of XP-SP2 Pro at the time of purchase. As I was giving my old machine to my sister and I was giving her my OEM XP Pro disk with it.

Frank et al

Look at the DaveLessnau thread
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=143068

DaveLessnau and Bitbasher found out how to build an install CD from an OEM disk, adapting it to use with the CD-Key at the bottom of your laptop. Since I didn't have an OEM CD I tried with the stuff from Acer (see the same thread) and succeeded to build one wh an OEM disk.
In the meantime I have compared this with an OEM disk and discovered that this actually delivers a full install disk (only the autorun thing in Windows doesn't work due to the missing setup.exe).
Essentially the i386 dir contains the whole shebang you need for a Windows install disk. You need to copy in some files from your installation (all mentioned in the thread).
DaveLessnau and Bitbasher should have the credits!
If your i386 is already 'polluted' with updates you can extract a clean version from the recovery CDs or your factory install backup. You probably will need a password, but that can be found looking just after the ASCII string pwd in the filed Recovery.exe on the system CD (not sure if it is direct on the CD or in the bootimage of the CD; CD2D.exe on the backup or D2D.exe in the recovery partition.
just rename the *.HDD image file to *.GHO and use your Ghost to unpack it.

Like you I have imaged (several) stable install(s), as well as the recovery partition itself. It simply takes to much time to do a fresh install with all applications and settings, while putting back an image with ATI (Acronis True Image) or Ghost takes just a few minutes.
Rather unfortunately I bought Ghost10 before I learned about Acronis. As soon as they offer a competitive upgrade I switch (it's faster and it also works with Linux, actually the program seems to be embedded linux thing), mainly because the ghost10 recovery environment (the symantec recovery CD), being a windows PE thing designed for the lowest common denominator, takes forever to load, while with the Acronis CD it is just seconds.


HTH

Drio

Hi Drio,
Whew! a lot of info will have to see if I can duplicate just to see if I can.
As mentioned I already have a XP-SP2 Pro install disk but a disk tailored to my machine would be great in case my backup hard drive solution fails.
Plus if I used this restore XP home disk it would free up my purchased disk for use on another computer later on.
I can see myself in the future using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS as my main or only OS. I have been playing with it for a year now and incrementally updating to the latest distro.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS can do almost anything Windoze can do and some things better. And it's free! And there is an enormous support community out there.
My install is nearly perfect and I have a cloned image of it on an external HDD. So if needs be I can restore
it to an ailing install using Partimage on the Linux Recovery CD and be back in business in about 30
minutes. Neat

Thanks