No Windows 7 on the HP Mini 2140- yet

windows-7-logo1I 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.

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