Why can I install Ubuntu but not Windows?

There is nothing regarding AHCI or SATA in the BIOS either. I'm searching for screenshots of the A10 BIOS options so you can see.

Here's a nice simple answer -- hope it helps. To disable loading acpi.sys during boot, press F7 instead of F6. [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310064] That way it should be able to go ahead and finish the install anyhow.

By the way, acpi.sys is an utterly unnecessary file, and you don't need it to install Windows. You can go back and put it in later when Windows is installed. acpi.sys is just the driver bundle for the 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface;' in plain English, it puts your computer to sleep when you don't have any more battery to run on, and it dims your screen when you're not plugged in. Just keep the thing plugged in until you get everything installed; you should be fine. And I somehow doubt this is a problem with your hard drive. Power configuration drivers can be silly, and have to cope with very diverse hardwares on different laptops. If it spits your machine out the first time around, it most likely won't be a tremendous problem. The worst-case scenario, if you never manage to install acpi.sys? You lose maybe an hour in battery life -- that's it.

Here's a nice simple answer -- hope it helps. To disable loading acpi.sys during boot, press F7 instead of F6 No go. I press F7 while it's booting the Windows disc but I still get the error message. Or there's an option to set the drive to AHCI or IDE emulation in BIOS. I would love to know specifically where this is. I'll grab a notepad and pen and copy down all the BIOS settings. I'm not seeing anything regarding AHCI or IDE in BIOS.

Okay, now this is bugging me: how is it at all possible that a bad hard drive would throw an acpi.sys error message? Unless the hard drive isn't getting enough electricity or something, I don't see why it would trip up acpi.sys at all. Do you guys know something I don't about all this? Or RAM -- how could this be faulty RAM? I don't get it.

And how could a bad hard drive throw an error message before Windows even begins installing to disk?

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints: I would love to know specifically where this is. I'll grab a notepad and pen and copy down all the BIOS settings. I'm not seeing anything regarding AHCI or IDE in BIOS. In lieu of evidence, I'm pretty sure odinsdream is right -- this doesn't have much to do with your problem. But this does: look in your BIOS under Power Management -- reading around, apparently some BIOSes have a switch to enable or disable ACPI. That would fit the bill exactly, so here's hoping. Finally: this is somewhat ridiculous, this flopping around with the BIOS. You shouldn't have to do that to use the machine minimally. Go download and burn http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ -- that should get you to a command prompt almost certainly, and then you can chkdsk until the cows come home.

Do you see SATA Operations in the BIOS? Probably under System Setup. You should have the option for Legacy or IDE or AHCI or something. And how could a bad hard drive throw an error message before Windows even begins installing to disk? I was under the impression that this was happening post install during the first reboot.

damn dirty ape: I was under the impression that this was happening post install during the first reboot. Nope: valkyryn: It'd really help to know when in the install process this is happening. spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints: Um...In the beginning. Within one minute of booting from the CD. Shortly after the "Press F6 to load SCSI Drivers" message. You might have gotten tripped up by the part in the question where he installed onto his sister's computer using this disk and then uninstalled just to test the disk. This is happening at the beginning of install.