Can't install windows on Dell Mini 910

[Weldum]

Hello, i've been trying to fix a Dell Inspiron 910.

It had Windows installed before, but now can't get it installed.

I've been trying to install windows XP. The setup starts in text mode, but when should show the "to setup windows xp now, press enter", before the EULA screen, it locks. More specifically in the black screen after loading files.

I don't know what to do because it only has 512mb of ram and an 8GB IDE SSD.

It seems to work properly, because i've tested the ram and ssd and are fine. Also, the computer boots from a Linux liveCD just fine.

What can I do?

 

[holdum333]

Hi Is this what you have??:wink: Product Support | Dell US

 

[holdum333]

Hi After further research. That device is shipped with a Linux OS. I don't think the specs will allow a XP OS! Have you checked to see if it can be upgraded to XP?:wink:

 

[xandros9]

Maybe its your install media?

And to be frank, I think Linux is the way to go here since it only has 512 MB of RAM, which may be tolerable, but the 8 GB of storage is straight-up prohibitive. I couldn't really shoehorn Windows 7 into a 16 GB drive and I don't imagine its successors to be much better.

 

[Weldum]

holdum333: this netbook had Windows XP when I bought it, and yesterday I downloaded the Windows XP drivers from Dell website.

xandros9: i've tested lubuntu 16.10 and it worked well, but some of the apps like Firefox and LibreOffice are just too much for it. In XP, I will be using older versions of these programs, or not using it at all for those things.
I actually have installed now Windows 7 starter, it has 1GB free of the 8GB SSD and work very well despite low amount of memory but, I don't have anything installed on it.

I've readed on some forums that maybe the SSD firmware needs to be updated. Looking on the Device Manager, it looks like the problem is that the IDE controller doesn't have support for Generic PCI IDE driver (apparently). I have to do some tests with the drivers.

 

[Weldum]

after a lot of testing with drivers and different windows installations, can't get it to work with windows xp, even windows 10 installs and starts just fine (with 1GB ram and almost no free space)

what could be the problem?