[Scoobaru64]

I bought this mint Mini 9 for £30 with a mains charger but nothing else. It has 1gb Ram and a 8gb STEC SSD.

Now when I bought this the guy said it just needed an install

I've tried both XP and XP Pro with Genuine Dell Disks and both attempts have ended with a BSOD when it was close to finishing the install.

I've done the basics like checking the RAM, reformatting the drive etc. all to no avail.

Am I missing something important?

I even tried downloading a copy of Ubuntu 10.4 which like the Windows appeared to be installing OK but then several errors appeared. Oddly it loaded the trial version OK and run perfectly fine giving me the opportunity to explore Ubuntu.

Any tips, tricks or advice would be be great

T.I.A.
Andrew

[rrfranczak3]

it is possible..it could be the drive...usually you get what you pay for in most cases...you wouldnt expect the guy to tell you about the drive do ya?.....

the part that really sucks is that its a Mini 9 and you cant even put in real hard drive if you wanted to..they only take those mini pci-e (or whatever they are called) drives...

[Scoobaru64]

Hence the title. I thought it may be the drive but just wanted to check I've not missed something really important.

As you quite rightly say, with any "normal" machine you can put another drive in instantaniously unfortunately I don't collect SSDs quite like SATA/IDE drives lol.

TBH I think it's the drive but was kinda hoping that it was my mistake.
I've already ordered a 32gb Runcore for my other mini but until that arrives I don't want to risk another drive.

[hircus]

Did you resolve the problem? I'd suggest installing to a USB disk, or running a live image (e.g. MeeGo) from USB without installing, to see if it is indeed just the SSD that is toast.

[grassle]

Boot from the Dell 'Drivers and Utilities' CD (should have come with XP) and you get a hardware test.