When I first got my Asus Eee 900HA, I thought about installing Windows Vista on it, but after doing some research, it turned out the performance was less than stellar, as you might imagine. Then the Windows 7 Beta was released, and I found several articles where people had installed it on their netbooks, and were very happy with the results. From the sound of it, Microsoft is getting Windows 7 right where Vista went wrong. So I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta and decided to install it.
That’s where it got tricky. Netbooks don’t have an internal DVD drive, so the only way to install it is from a USB flash drive or USB hard drive. The Windows 7 Beta is well over 2 GB, but the biggest USB drive I had lying around was only 1 GB, so that wasn’t an option. I have an old 200 GB USB hard drive though, so I dusted it off and went to work. Unfortunately though, this was the most difficult part of the entire installation. For some reason, I had a nothing but trouble trying to get my netbook to boot from the USB drive. It took a few hours, and I had to try countless methods from various Google searches, but in the end, here are the steps that worked for me.
Before You Begin
These instructions assume that you’re running Windows Vista, and have already downloaded the Windows 7 Beta and have either created a DVD or will be mounting the ISO. If you haven’t gotten the beta yet, you can get it from the official site at Microsoft, or find it on the torrents. If you’re not running Vista, you’ll need to use some other disk partitioning program. GParted seems to be a pretty popular choice.
I would also recommend updating your BIOS, if you haven’t arleady. I’m not sure if this is absolutely necessary, but I read that some people were not able to boot from their USB devices until they did this.
Upgrading the Memory
The 900HA only comes with 1 GB of RAM, so the first thing you’ll want to do is replace it with a 2 GB chip. You’ll need a 200 Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM. I got mine from NewEgg for under 20 bucks. To install the RAM, remove the four screws on the bottom of the netbook, then take off the cover plate, and you’ll see the existing RAM chip. Spread the spring clips apart on either side of the chip, and it’ll pop up for removal. Slide in the new chip and press it down until the spring clips lock it in place, screw the cover plate back on, and you’re done.
(Click on images to see a larger version)
Creating a Bootable USB Drive with Windows 7
To make your USB hard drive bootable, follow these steps:
- Plug in your USB drive.
- Open the Start menu, then right-click “Computer,” and then select “Manage.” This will open the Computer Management window.
- Select “Disk Management” to view the list of drives, then right-click on the USB drive and select “Shrink Volume.”
- Reduce the volume by 4 GB, which will be more than enough for your Windows 7 files, then click Shrink. This will split your drive into two partitions.
- Next, right-click on the 4 GB partition, and select “New Simple Volume.”
- Format the volume for FAT32, and give the volume a label, like “Windows7″. Make sure to check “Quick Format,” then finish the wizard.
- Finally, right-click the partition and select “Mark Partition as Active.”
- Now all that’s left is to copy all of the Windows 7 files onto the new partition. This is one of the areas I had trouble with. Just copying the files from within Windows didn’t seem to work. My netbook would never boot from the USB drive. I ended up getting it to work with XCOPY.
- Open a command prompt and type: xcopy e:\*.* /s/e/ h:\ where E: is the DVD with the Windows 7 files, and H: is the 4 GB partition.
Booting the 900HA from USB
Before you can boot your netbook from USB, follow these steps:
- Press F2 while booting to get into the BIOS settings.
- Go into the Boot menu, and disable Boot Boster. (You can turn this back on after you’ve completed the install.)
- Change the Boot Device Priority so that the 1st Boot Device is set to “Removable Device.”
- Save the settings and exit, then shut down the netbook.
- Plug in the USB drive and turn on the netbook. It should automatically start the Windows 7 install.
The Install
Once you’ve got the install process going, the rest is cake. All I had to do was pick a few options and then let it do it’s thing. The install was painless, and only took about 20 minutes. I was immediately able to connect to my wireless network, my display adapter automatically set my resolution to the proper 1024 x 600, and even the multi-touch features were working on my touchpad. Not everything worked right out of the gate though. My LAN adapter wasn’t detected, so I installed the latest driver from the Asus website. I also had to download and install the latest drivers for Audio, ACPI, and SuperHybridEngine.
First Impressions
I haven’t done a lot with it yet, but I like what I’ve seen so far. It takes about 55 seconds to boot, which is about 10 or 15 seconds slower than with XP, but I can live with that. My performance rating is 2.2, which is due to the Atom processor and the graphics card, but that’s no surprise. Windows Media Center runs, but it isn’t snappy. It had no problems playing a DVD off the hard drive from Media Center, but it had a hard time keeping up while I was playing some of the online content, like movie trailers and videos. I’m not sure if that’s due to the processor or the speed of the wireless connection, or both. I do like the new visual features while listening to music though. Internet browsing seems fine too, which is mostly what I use it for anyway. There are a lot of new features in Windows 7 that I haven’t learned yet, so I’ll be spending some time picking up some of the new tricks. If it proves to be pretty stable, I might even install it on my main HTPC to get some of the benefits of the new Media Center features. Then again, if it’s too buggy and crashes a lot, it’s good to know that the 900HA comes with a hidden partition with the original XP image on it, so I can do a quick recovery.
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i love the Asus Eee PC, it is very light, cheap and portable. I also bought another unit for my girlfriend and she really likes it.
what i like about the Asus Eee PC is that it is very lightweight and very portable that you can just carry it anywhere.
Asus Eee is very convenient to carry. It is my walkaround laptop wherever i go. The battery life could have been better though
Asus Eee is perfect for ladies who does not want to carry a very heavy laptop. i like the Asus Eee because it is very compact and easy to carry anywhere.
Great article. Very informative.
i recently bought a white Asus Eee PC and i am very surprised about the size of this machine. it is very small and lightweight compared to my Toshiba laptop
i bought an Asus Eee PC about a month ago and i am still amazed of its compact size and how lightweight it is. `
It’s great how you laid out the installation process along with your review on how well it works with certain things like web, music, videos, media center etc…
2gb memory upgrade DRAMATICALLY increases your ability to use Windows 7 and the ability to play games like The Sims 2 and Need for Speed and other neat things. Cheers for all who have the 900 Ha. USB Booting is something to study if you’re into getting dual-boot going too!
I own an Asus Eee and an acer netbook but i often use the Asus Eee because it is so much lighter and easily fits in my small bag.
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i always use my Asus Eee PC when i am travelling. It is very convenient to carry on any place.
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I got an Asus Eee as a christmas gift. It is very compact but i wish that the LCD screen was larger.
Asus Eee is not only portable, it is also one of the most affordable netbooks you can buy. Asus is also a good brand which means quality and reliabilty.
It doesn’t work at all, also there is no boot booster option in the bios. oh well have to look for another solution
my Asus Eee PC broke down a couple of months ago. I bought a new one which is still an Asus Eee, i love this netbook.
i alway use my Asus EEE PC when i am out of town because it is very light,.”
i alway use my Asus EEE PC when i am out of town because it is very light:”.
i love the asus eee, so light and mobile,-`
asus eee is lighter than my other netbooks:`.
the new versions of Asus Eee are even more portable and have more features that is why i like these gadgets ;
the new versions of Asus Eee are even more portable and have more features that is why i like these gadgets “”
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The command line example for XCOPY on step 9 did not work.
Here is what worked for me:
xcopy E:\*.* H:\ /s /e /h
…where E: is the DVD with the Windows 7 files, and H: is the 4 GB partition
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