[ladybearbc]

We had an Acer Netbook Aspire One crash a couple of weeks ago. We have tried to restore and a varety of other things.

The Netbook DOES NOT have a CD drive nor do we have an external CD drive.We have a 1Gig USB stick

We ended up by having to order 2 discs from Acer - 1 to fix the partition and one to fix Windows.

How do we make the stick bootable? (Would prefer it in simple terms please )

[Mumbodog]

Trust me on this, invest in a usb cd/dvd drive. But if you must. This should work for the XP CD, not sure if it will work for the partition repair cd or not.


http://wintoflash.com/home/en/

.

[helpmerick]

I agree with Mumodog....for XP, you will be much better off getting an external CD to install. However, if you are up to it, I HIGHLY recommend Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Crunchbang Linux for netbooks. They work fast, safe, and don't require the updating and security hand holding needed for XP. Perfect for a netbook.

To make bootable USBs for Linux, I like UNetbootin.

[DoubleHelix]

Did you try the recovery partition? I can't pull up Acer's support site at the moment, but they have the manuals and guides available for download which should describe how to access the partition.

[Mumbodog]

Did you try the recovery partition?

We have tried to restore and a varety of other things.

[ladybearbc]

Originally Posted by Mumbodog

Trust me on this, invest in a usb cd/dvd drive. But if you must. This should work for the XP CD, not sure if it will work for the partition repair cd or not.


http://wintoflash.com/home/en/

.

Thank you Mumbodog - we have now flashed the stick with the software and started up the Acer with the stick in it.

It boots with the following 2 lines in this order

2nd (highlighted ) GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of windows
AND 1st - text mode setup (boot from flash again after finished)

When I start in GUI mode, I get this error - 'Windows could not start because the following ile is missing or corrupt
<Windows rood>\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the above file

When I start in text mode - it says 'windows setup' and proceeds through the whole thing - then offers several options

1. To set up windows Xp now, press enter
2. To repair a windows XP installation using Recovery Console - press R
3. To quit setup without installing Windows XP - press F3

Using # 1 - it installs all the files, says it will reboot the system - and starts the the original whole process again

Using # 2 - nothing happens

Help ...

Thank you again.

[ladybearbc]

Originally Posted by helpmerick

I agree with Mumodog....for XP, you will be much better off getting an external CD to install. However, if you are up to it, I HIGHLY recommend Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Crunchbang Linux for netbooks. They work fast, safe, and don't require the updating and security hand holding needed for XP. Perfect for a netbook.

To make bootable USBs for Linux, I like UNetbootin.

Hi helpmerick

Thank you for the suggestions and would love to be able to use Linux - however we have never tried it and have several programs that are designed for Windows that we have to use on a daily basis. I am not sure if any of them are operable by Linux.

Wasn't aware, before we bought this thing that they didn't provide us with some way to boot the silly thing if there was a crash - so for now - just want to get it up and running.

[ladybearbc]

The recovery partition from the website was the first thing we tried (after the local compter repair place told us they couldn't figure out the problem)

When that didn't work, we called Acer and asked what could be done. They advised we would need the recovery disk and repair disk - which we ordered (and paid for - should have been included in the purchase in our opinion) - it arrived yesterday.

What they didn't do was advise how we were supposed to install it into the computer because they were well aware they made these things without CD drives.

[ladybearbc]

Originally Posted by DoubleHelix

Did you try the recovery partition? I can't pull up Acer's support site at the moment, but they have the manuals and guides available for download which should describe how to access the partition.

Hi Double Helix

Thank you for the suggestion - we tried that a week or so ago and that is why we now have the recovery CD - because that process did not work.

[Mumbodog]

Using # 1 - it installs all the files, says it will reboot the system - and starts the the original whole process again

That usually means it is booting from the CD again, which you don't want at this point of installation, it is supposed to boot from the hard drive.

[DoubleHelix]

There's a reason many places now sell slim, external CD drives now. Acer isn't stupid. Of course they know the netbook didn't come with a CD drive. They assume you know you'd need to buy one to use the disks. They also provide a recovery partition. Obviously more happened to this computer to cause that to fail as well.

You haven't provided many details about the "crash" that occurred leading up to these events. Is it possible the hard drive is what failed here?

[ladybearbc]

Originally Posted by DoubleHelix

There's a reason many places now sell slim, external CD drives now. Acer isn't stupid. Of course they know the netbook didn't come with a CD drive. They assume you know you'd need to buy one to use the disks. They also provide a recovery partition. Obviously more happened to this computer to cause that to fail as well.

You haven't provided many details about the "crash" that occurred leading up to these events. Is it possible the hard drive is what failed here?

We are not really sure what caused the crash and initially thought it was a virus. We took it to the neighbourhood computer shop - and they advised it was not a virus and felt it had something to do with the hard drive - but advised they could not fix it.

We contacted Acer and they said they did not support the software and we would have to check that out first.

This unit is barely 5 months old

I guess the question is - how do you know it is the hard drive that crashed?

[ladybearbc]

Originally Posted by Mumbodog

That usually means it is booting from the CD again, which you don't want at this point of installation, it is supposed to boot from the hard drive.

So what is our next step?

[Rich-M]

As has been suggested, I see no choice but to buy an external cd drive, which you will need sooner or later anyway. This is one of the reasons I have never advised Netbooks for purchase to my clients as I could not see how to repair normal issue on them.

[Mumbodog]

said they did not support the software

They lie, they Are responsible for software software under warranty, it is part of their OEM license agreement with Microsoft, after all they did sell it to you.