NeutralAxis

I picked up the new Acer AspireRevo AR1600-U910H with the intention of installing XBMC on it as a HTPC.  A writeup about this model and XBMC on Lifehacker.com made it look easy as pie.  So far, I’ve run into a roadblock at every turn.  [Updates with some solutions]

Roadblock #1:  Before doing anything to remove the factory Windows installation, I wanted to make a set of restore discs.  With no optical drive, I tried doing it to a USB stick.  No joy there.  The Acer eRecovery program only recognizes optical drives.  The discs that the Acer eRecovery program make will only restore the C: drive.  It won’t do anything to restore the second partition that holds the HDD based restore data.  So when Acer calls these discs “recovery discs”, that’s really a bit of a misnomer.  If the HDD is wiped, they will not restore it to factory condition because they won’t rebuild the restore partition.  I decided to take care of that by using Clonezilla to clone the entire drive.

Roadblock #2:  A CD burner removed from an old system and attached via a USB to IDE converter cable is recognized by Windows, but not by the eRecovery program. I have a source to borrow a USB DVD burner. A borrowed USB DVD burner worked to create the recovery discs.  However, now I find that the BIOS doesn’t recognize that drive and won’t boot from it. Not only did the BIOS not recognize that drive, but the data on the discs was apparently bad.  I ordered a new Samsung USB DVD Burner and it works great.  It boots the Revo, and the recovery DVDs it made work.  It doesn’t even need a power cable.

Roadblock #3:  Hookup to my TV through an HDMI cable shows no video signal. Nevermind.  It must have been a cable issue because after unplugging the cable from both computer and TV and reconnecting it, its now working.

Roadblock #4:  Hookup to my TV through a VGA cable shows a video signal during boot, but the TV reports “invalid format” once it gets to the Windows desktop. Display is fine on an old VGA monitor.

Roadblock #5:  Despite the BIOS being set to boot from USB first, it fails to recognize my USB stick holding XBMC Live and boots from the HD. I need to test that stick on a different computer and make sure it was made bootable properly. The stick was fine.  It was being recognized as a hard drive, and not as a removable drive.  When I saw that was happening, I changed the hard drive priority so the USB stick was first and it booted to XBMC Live.

Roadblock #6:  Once XBMC Live is running, I have no network connection.  System status reports that the network link is inactive. After a few hours of searching for an answer unsuccessfully, I went back to the Lifehacker article and chose a different source for the ISO.  I recreated the USB stick and now the network link is active.  Originally, I used the Lifehacker link that went to a mininova torrent and must have chosen the wrong file.