Acer Aspire One A0751H install onto SSD hangs.

Hey,

I have an Acer Aspire One A0751H that's been running Windows XP on a HDD.
I've replaced that drive with a 120GB Sandisk SSD and I'm trying to install Windows 7 from an external DVD.

I select the custom install path and select the single unallocated partition for installation.
It works fine up to the point where it says "Copying Windows files (0%)..." where it hangs.
No progress, cursor freezes, no response.

The only other change I've made to the machine is to upgrade the RAM to 2GB of Corsair.
I've disabled all other boot devices in bios (no floppy drive)

I've seen other A0751H running Windows 7 on SSD's so I know it can work.
Any ideas as to what could be wrong?

Where did you get Win7? How do you plan to activate it?

Try install from a DVD or Flash stick as an external drive requires a boot manager and isn't worth the trouble.

It's a store bought DVD. I'll activate on-line or over the phone once it's working.

I've tried to get this machine to boot from a USB before with no success.
This computer doesn't have an internal DVD drive. If you don't think an external drive is the way to go, how would you suggest installing Windows 7 on to the new SSD?

Try getting a good bootable flash stick from Steps 1 and 2 in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

It is very rare that a correctly formatted flash stick won't boot from BIOS setup boot order or the Acer one-time BIO Boot menu F12 key at boot.

Hmmm, ok I'll give it another go and let you know what happens.

For anyone who's having the same problem I ended up buying a hard drive dock and installing onto it though my desktop before putting the drive back into the lap top. Worked first time.

strollin said:

I have installed Win 7 on at least 3 Acer Aspire One AOA150 netbooks (1 with a Kingston ssd) from an external DVD drive without issues.

How long did you wait with the "Copying Windows files (0%)..." on the screen? Maybe it was just slow?

Yeah, it should have worked.
I waited about four hours and it hadn't moved at all. Frozen solid.
I know it's not a very powerful processor and I've read about installs taking 9 or even 15 hours but I wasn't going to wait that long.

Installing onto the drive through the dock took about 45 minutes. No errors.


My only problem with the laptop now is I have a strange lag when typing. It's like it can only display about three characters a second. If I type faster than that it seems to buffer the letters and I have to wait while what I've typed appears on the screen.