Foxconn Mini/Booksize Barebone System: AMD Dual Core E-350 1.6GHz, Radeon HD 6310 w/ HDMI, WiFi N + 64GB OCZ Agility 4 Solid State Drive (SSD) $110 after $10 rebate + Free Shipping

when you buy it it downloads an installer, which in turn downloads windows 8. once the download is completed, it asks you if you want to install now, make an ISO, or copy to a usb drive. choose the usb drive option, then use that drive on your foxconn. it runs quite well on this little box!

Ok, changing the boot.ini file didn't work. Wanted to give it a try with a different USB drive, it worked flawlessly. Here are the steps I followed:
1. Download WinToFlash from here. [wintoflash.com]
2. Load the XP into USB drive.
3. Set the hard drive mode to IDE in BIOS (otherwise the SSD will not be recognized)
4. Change the boot order to set the USB to #1
5. Boot the system and select the option "1st, text mode setup (Boot from flash again after finished)"
6. It copies all the files and reboots, now select the option "2nd, GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of Windows"
7. Windows boots and finishes the rest of the installation
8. Download the drivers from here [foxconnchannel.com] and enjoy your new system!

I am having the same issue as you did, HAL.DLL missing. I tried 2 different USB drives still no luck and my SATA is chosen as IDE. The USB flash that I am using right now is 32GB and actually my installation ran longer this time, for about 9 hrs but then it came back to the same error. Any advice please

Are you selecting the option "2nd, GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of Windows" when you boot second time?

Actually, like u said I chose the 1st option for the first time and inst ran over night and when I checked this noon I had this error msg, i dint have a chance to choose 2nd option but I went back and chose the second option and it went straight to the error msg

I followed everything and I was successful in installing the OS but I have issues activating the product though. When I try to activate the product using the key that I received during purchase, it says "This key is for upgrade only not for complete windows install"

Note, when asked whether to upgrade or install windows only (Advanced), I chose the later option during the installation.

Did anyone face this problem? any suggestions please!!!

I owe you an apology, I had actually done an install on top of a win 7 install. It does not have to be activated however, if you install any version of windows from xp to 7 on there and leave the serial number blank, then run the win 8 installer the serial will activate

Probably you got the message when it roobooted by itself and selected the first option in the boot menu. Keep trying the other options in the boot menu, I am sure one of them will definitely work. Good luck!

Got mine today. Installing Win 7 as I type this. Nothing to eventful. How they have you pop open the case with a knife is pretty ghetto. I used a very small screw driver. Only things not detected with a Win 7 SP1 install are the two network cards and USB 3.0 ports. Going to install XBMC and a couple VM's on this thing and see how she performs. The 8gb memory stick I ordered worked fine.

One note on the bios. Before you dive into upgrading the bios, check what version you have out of the box. I had v07 which is only one or two from the latest. I read some bad stories about upgrading the bios on one of the AV forums. So I am leaving it alone.

Did you install XBMC on this machine? any forum or discussion on how to do that

From reading your thread it seems you installed XP. I don't think XBMC supports DXVA2 on XP. You need Windows 7 to get DXVA2 for XBMC.

You may need to use DSPlayer.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?ti...or_Windows

I installed XBMC on Win7 and a Rosewill Media Center remote and finally got it working good with a Harmony Remote.

I installed the XBMC.exe file, then I placed a shortcut in the start folder because I want XBMC to start on boot. However AMD Catalyst would interfere with the booting and minimize XBMC.

You need to type msconfig at the start box and uncheck AMD Catalyst from startup.

This works well for having a dedicatd XBMC machine.

I actually have win 8 on my machine. so you downloaded from www.xbmc.org?. how did you get the harmony working? did you buy a IR dongle separately.

I actually got one for $13 shipped from newegg. It's not on sale but they have one that is that seems to have one IR Receivers with an extension for $12. They go for more on eBay and aren't as small as these which are nice for making it a clean install It should work the same. On the Harmony you just program the remote as a Microsoft and type is Media Center. I also reprogrammed the Exit button as Back to make going back in XBMC easier.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6880101007

you dont have any receiver connected to Nettop for harmony to work? also did you install XBMC 11 or 12 Beta?