No Windows 7 on the HP Mini 2140- yet
I was feeling ambitious today and I set out to do something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I wanted to install Windows 7 on the HP Mini 2140 and see a fine netbook running what I believe may be the best OS for such a computer. Hours later I am still yet to get it installed.
I have Windows 7 on a DVD so the first step was to connect a DVD drive to the Mini 2140 via USB and get that install going. I ran into an obstacle pretty quickly as I couldn’t find a USB drive laying around anywhere. I know I have one somewhere but if memory serves me right I haven’t seen it since I moved last year. That means it’s likely in some box stored somewhere. No big deal I’ll just install it from a USB stick.
That was easier said than done too as every USB stick I pulled out, and I have so many of them, all tap out at 2 GB or smaller. The install DVD has ~2.5 GB of files that need to be copied onto the USB stick for installation so that just wouldn’t work. I rooted through every drawer in the office but couldn’t come up with a stick >2 GB. Bummer.
Then it hit me, I could use the 16 GB SD card I use in the video camera as it was easily big enough. It wouldn’t be as fast as a USB stick but probably would be faster than a DVD drive so I was back in business. I copied all the DVD files over to the SD and then sat down at the 2140 to get on with the install.
I was still trying to decide if I wanted to do a dual-boot configuration or a simple clean install when I started getting suspicious about the ability to boot the 2140 from SD. I might be mistaken but I remember the 2133 could boot from SD so I went digging through the BIOS to make sure that SD boot was enabled. That option wasn’t there. I went off on a hunting trip across the web and can’t find any indication that the 2140 will boot from SD.
Interestingly, the similar Mini 1000 can be booted from SD, the BIOS supports that option. I did confirm that the 2133 would also boot from SD so it looks at this point that the 2140 is the only netbook model HP offers that won’t boot from SD. Maybe it’s because HP feels that would be a security risk for a netbook aimed at the enterprise but it’s got me dead in the water at this point. Maybe I’ll get Windows 7 installed on this baby eventually. I guess I’ll have to start digging through storage boxes for that DVD drive.
even if it could boot from SD just “copying” the DVD files over to the SD wouldnt be enough, it has to be made “bootable”.
Hi,
You may want to try this;I put Win 7 on my Acer one yesterday. I shared the DVD drive in my regular laptop within my home network and then accessed it from the Acer. It is slower I guess, but much easier than digging around for my portable drive. It worked great.
Ellen
zFrame, you are correct it would have to be made bootable (and was).
Ellen, that will be next on the list time permitting.
James, while your point regarding no-SD boot on the 2140 is valid, I think this discussion could have been a few sentences long rather than six paragraphs.
Can you put the SD card in a USB reader and then boot from USB? I’ve never tried something like that, but it might work.
Not quite related to your problem, but for grins I installed Win 7 (x86) today on an old PC I built about 7 years ago. It has an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.4 Ghz) single-core CPU, 768 MB of RAM, and an old video card with 64 MB of memory. It installed in about 25 minutes without a hitch, and it runs like a champ. It seems to run just as well as XP does (I set it up as dual boot XP/Win 7). Obviously, with those specs there’s no Aero. So, I set it to maximize performance rather than appearance. It’s actually quite zippy (even with all of the UI eye candy turned on).
Assuming Microsoft doesn’t do anything that kills performance between now and RTM, I can’t imagine that PC manufacturers are going to be too happy about the fact that Win 7 runs so well on older equipment. It even recognized a crappy old webcam I had attached to the PC, and told me there was a driver update to download for it. Vista had barfed on that webcam (I had to buy a new one for my Vista PC).
So far, Win 7 seems like a keeper.
This is what I wanted to do James, I can’t wait till you get it installed!
I was wondering if I should opt for the 2 gig vista 2140 for $549 or go for the 6 cell battery version for $529.
I wish they had an option to get the 6 cell and 2 gig of ram for $579, but it seems that customizing that option brings the total to $779 on the hp site!
It just doesn’t make sense to get Vista, if I’ll be updating to Win 7 when it comes out. And it’s interesting that you can’t opt for a 2 gig Win XP machine on the hp site.
Well, regardless, I can’t wait for your impressions, and a video of it in action would be awesome!
thanks,
Larry
Jon, that’s on the list to try too.
Have I mentioned how much I want your job? This is the kind of fun stuff I squeeze in the few free hours I get after work.
Hmmm… I can’t remember if the free ISO Recorder application can create an .ISO file from a CD/DVD. If so, the resulting .ISO file can be installed with a Virtual CD power toy.
The service manual is now up on HP’s site (it’s actually an updated 2133 manual as they’re very similar) and it includes a comprehensive reference of the BIOS. Let me find you a link:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01658655/c01658655.pdf
Surprisingly, while there’s a boot priority option to load from a USB SuperDisk, which seems to be a long-discontinued Zip Disk sort of affair, the SD reader isn’t mentioned. So I think it may not be supported. However, that info is supposed to apply to the 2133 also, and we already know that’s SD-bootable, so it’s not necessarily accurate.
Kevin, that’s on the “to try” list too. My only concern is that the virtual drive not appear during a reboot for the install.
I’ve done installs from Virtual CD and an .iso without fail. The Windows install copies the installation files locally before the reboots.
Putting memory card in USB adapter worked for me on a number of different configs. The memory card in my case was M2 and not SD, but that should not make a difference. I made it bootable with this procedure;
1. diskpart
2. list disk
3. select disk # (select the one that corresponds to USB disk in 2.)
4. clean
5. create partition primary
6. select partition 1
7. active
8. format fs=fat32
9. assign letter=y (or any free drive letter)
10. exit
if you have windows xp on there already you can run the install in windows ! just mount the iso using deamon tools or similar run setup.exe
did this to my laptop and works great… only problem is my laptops screen is broken
nothing to do with win 7 but its too expencive to repair and my desktop works great, will probably be getting a hp 2140 when the high res screen is released xD
What are you doing? I installed windows 7 on multiple computers right off of the desktop! All you have to do is unzip the folder, open the unzipped folder and click on setup. This will start the setup and then you can just continue from there. no burning no copying, just unzipping. I burned the unzipped files onto a DVD and installed windows 7 on a nother computer. Easy peasy
What flying said. You don’t need bootable anything if you have the partition ready to go. Can’t install over XP, so you need a new partition, but I used GParted booted from a 1G Usb key. Then you can install via SD from inside XP
James, you need to get organized!
The minimum equipment I have on hand for every one of my notebook reviews include an 8GB USB thumbdrive and an external SONY burner. Useful, convenient and FAST.
And as your buddy Kevin mentioned, an ISO burning utility and virtual drive software will save you much time and many headaches.
I don’t get paid for my blog, yet even for me time is money – something I don’t like to waste.
I was going to comment similar to Phillip and flying.
I haven’t done it since XP. But that’s how I would always re-image my XP boxes. Copy the CD/DVD to the HD, and install from there, it’s faster than the DVD, and if you leave the files in a directory on the HD you always have them if you “need the disk” for some update, (though I think MS has mostly eliminated that via d/l from the web for updates).
Best of luck. It’s on my list (as been for a couple of weeks) to install on my VaioUX to see how 7 performs on that tiny little guy, and/or my Fujitsu P1610, neither of which I can use with Vista anymore, after getting the HP 2730p. Maybe Win7 will breathe some life into them.
I am shocked. A 2gb stick is the largest in all of Mobile Tech Manor!? Time to send out a requisition request to Om for an 8gig stick (at least… 16 would be better).
Oh yeah, and when I read the headline, I thought the story was about Windows 7 not working on the 2140, period.
While you’re at it, how about installing MacOS instead? Would be much more exciting.
You do know that while we all have been typing these comments, James probably went down to his local Circuit City and bought a usb drive and cd/dvd rom drive, loaded Win 7, and is preparing the video for upload
Larry is *CLEARLY* a regular reader of the site. Or he has a webcam tucked inside Mobile Tech Manor.
More to come shortly… (and Larry stay out of my closet).
Awesome news!
and James (cough cough) we both know there’s no room in your closet for me to fit in there (I barely had enough room for the webcam)
*snicker*
Larry
Uhh, isn’t that a no-brainer? I was beginning to think the Port of Houston had imposed an embargo on USB flash drives.
all u have to do is to insert that SD card into a card reader and then connect the card reader to the 2140 via usb port…..
that will hopefully do it for u