I decided to start using my netbook again, for the times when I need a bigger keyboard – I have a Sony Duo and use it mostly as a touch pad, as the keyboard is way too small and I make too many typos. I have a 15″ laptop with 8 GB of memory, but my daughter sorta swiped it to do her schoolwork. (When I bought the 15, I told her I'd give it to her after I got a new one, but the Duo is just to small for some of the things I need to do on a laptop.)
The Acer netbook only has 2 GB of memory, but I use an SD card with ReadyBoost to jack it up a little. The SD is basically a permanent resident in the SD slot.
Anyway… I decided I liked Windows 8 a whole lot more than Windows 7 and decided to do a clean install. I created a boot USB with the Windows 8.1. Booted the computer, deleted the Acer partition and the Windows 7 partition and formatted.
Then I clicked Next.
"We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files."
The hard drive is visible, I can format, delete it, reformat it. It's marked Primary. It should work… but that error keeps coming up. I tried some drivers I found on the Internet. Nothing worked. I tried advice I found on the Internet, nothing worked.
I popped the SD card out.
Success! (Sheesh.. who'd have thunk it. :))
Next effort… finishing a video driver. The default driver Windows installs is stretched and the drivers I found say they won't work with my OS.