Installing Windows 7 Question

[Bruce3431]

Hi ... new to the forum.

I pulled out an old (2009) ASUS Eee PC 1005 HA, a netbook which we bought for one of our children and was rarely used. It currently has Windows XP as an operating system. I would like to put Windows 7 32 bit on this machine; I have the original W7 installation disc. I checked with the ASUS website and it provided a tutorial on how to upgrade this specific machine to W7. I am somewhat confused about one thing (not being terribly computer savvy) ... the tutorial tells you to download the latest BIOS onto the machine while XP is still on the machine. It says "prior to upgrading to Windows 7, download the following" and lists 12 different drivers. These drivers are all available on their support site. It then tells you to install W7.

My question ... if I download all these drivers to a folder and then install W7, won't this folder be wiped out? Should I download the drivers to an external or flash drive? As I mentioned, I'm really not all that computer literate ... I know enough to get me to this forum but I don't really know how drivers are installed.

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions!

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi and welcome to SevenForums,
Yes you should download the drivers and if they come as a zip folder download right click them one at a time and Extract all to a flash drive

Then you can have that for after the install completes
The install should install most basic drivers but you can install the rest after

The bios is the risky one can't help you there you may or may not need to flash the bios
If you have issues you can always flash them after installing 7.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi again one snag might be you need to see what your bios has listed for this,
IDE is most likely the only thing listed ?

 

[joedaman633]

Can you give us a link to the tutorial you're trying to follow?

Also, does the machine have 1GB RAM? If so then you really want to upgrade it to 2GB, especially if you're installing Windows 7 Home Premium and not Windows 7 Starter.

 

[Bruce3431]

Hello ...

I did upgrade to 2 gigs shortly after we got the machine. The tutorial I was following can be located at
https://nbtsd.asustreiber.de/Handbuecher/Windows7Self-upgradeGuide.pdf.

I'm not certain exactly what it means to "flash" the BIOS. Does that mean upgrade the BIOS as suggested in the tutorial?

Thank you both so much for your responses!!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm not certain exactly what it means to "flash" the BIOS. Does that mean upgrade the BIOS as suggested in the tutorial?

Yes, flashing the BIOS can be viewed as upgrading the BIOS. You download the new BIOS and then "install" it. The installation process is generally referred to as "flashing".

It's not to be taken lightly. If it goes wrong, the machine could be effectively ruined permanently if you aren't willing to pay a considerable amount of money to undo the damage.

What could go wrong:

You download the wrong new BIOS.
You don't understand the menu choices or keystrokes necessary to flash the BIOS properly.
You have a power outage during the flash attempt.

That's why it's not to be taken lightly and why you should seek very clear instructions.

It's normally completed within 1 minute if you know the correct procedure.

Yes--download those drivers and any new BIOS to a flash drive.

It's generally best to flash outside of Windows although there are methods to do it from within Windows on most motherboards.

It won't "wipe" your hard drive, but it can render you dead in the water if it goes haywire.

 

[AddRAM]

There`s no reason to update the bios yet, and if you don`t know what you`re doing you might ruin the laptop.

Just install Windows 7 and go from there.

It`s a shame Asus doesn`t tell you what the hardware upgrades are

https://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks/Eee_PC_1005HA_Seashell/specifications/

This aticle says max supported size is 2 GB, but it doesn`t say if that is total or per slot, but having 4 GB would be much better then having only 2 GB.

Asus Eee PC 1005HA Specs - CNET

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yep definitely consider 32 bit for that much ram 2gb's

We have similar both are legacy so no worries about messing with updating the bios

I would however replace the existing hdd and upgrade to ssd 250gb ssd's are running at around 80.us worth every penny in performance

 

[Bruce3431]

Thank you all for your replies. I'll let you know how it went!