Looks like possibly the hard drive's gone tit's up on her laptop. I'm about to open it up and make sure it's all plugged together ok but not holding out much hope.
It went down about a year and a bit ago when it lost everything for some reason (post on here about it somewhere) so I reckon this time it's probably kaput.

The question is what do I need to replace it (i'll post info about the drive once it's opened up.)
Will i need to get a proper acer one or just any old drive of the same spec. Will the acer recovery discs load onto any drive?? will the bios or setup etc need changing.
What else do I need to know??

I have all the acer recovery discs but they're doing nothing and after trying them all you get is the no operating system found sort of message.

As usual guys thanks in advance.

Most laptop hard drives are the same, so any hard drive will do. The recovery disk will also work fine (as long as the new hard drive is big enough)

Cheers

There are 2 types of laptop drive 2.5" IDE and 2.5" SATA. You can tell the difference ans the IDE has about 44 pins on it and the SATA has 2 plastic connectors on the end. Any 2.5" drive of the same type will work. There is a chance that the drive will be some kind of cage. This should unscrew and the replacement drive screw in in its place.

Personally I would go for a Seagate disk. They have been the least problematic of all the brands I have used (and working in IT I have used a lot) and go for the 7200rpm rather than the 5400 rpm disks - there is a noticeable difference in performance. I have just ordered 160gb SATA 7200rpm seagate disk for £30+VAT so they ain't expensive!

The bios won't care about what make of disk and the recovery disks should install onto any disk too - never found one that is disk specific.

Regards

Mark

What Acer? It won't be an Acer branded disc and you can probably get an exact replacement or a much bigger capacity drive of the same make and type.

Is the laptop actually booting from the CD or is it still looking at the hard disc first? You will need to set the bios to boot from the CD first, then try reloading the original system from the CD. If it is still broken you could try the same thing with a new disc. I've just bought a 320Gb disc for an Acer laptop for around £50.

The Hd should be of one or two standard type so no problem there.
Bigger issue is why the recovery disks don't work?
What's actualy wrong with it Whats the symptoms at the moment?

It's quite an age of machine. An acer aspire 1355LC.
It will read the acer start up disc in the cd drive, which then has a look and does some activity, then tells you to reboot . then it comes up with a screen wth DCHP etc on it then you get a message operating system not found.
i'll get the exact info right now.

OK so in setup the following info

CPU amd athlon xp processor 2600

HDD1 model name (there's no info here should there be I think yes)
HDD serial no (same again no info)
ATAPI device QSI cd-rw/dvd-rom sbw 242c
system bios ver zp1 q3a25
vga bios ver via s3 0034
kbc ver ns0a36
serial no lxa100600342100680ef15
product name aspire 1350
manufacturer acer
uuid 608bad7ab8a9d811991200c09f3b1faa

set up to boot in the following order
Hard drive
removeable device
cd rom
intel undi pxe-2.0 ( build 082)

then you boot it up and get the message

client mac addr 00 c0 9f 3b 1f aa guid: 608bad7ab8a9d811991200c09f3b1faa
pxe-15: no dchp or proxy dchp offers were recieved

pxe-mof: exiting intel pxe rom.
operating system not found


then if you do the recovery system disc it boots up ejects the system disc and ask for recovery disc 1
then you get the " unable to find specified drive" message
click ok and it ask for the system disc again then after this it tells you to reboot and you get back to the exact same scenario client mac address Operating system not found stage..

[Edited on 31/1/09 by omega 24 v6]

[Edited on 31/1/09 by omega 24 v6]

I think you'll also need a copy of windows, as it's in a hidden partition on the hard drive. cheap enough on ebay, unless of course you are one of the lucky ones that got a copy with the laptop

Tony

Mmm conflicting information the hard drive is out and has around 44 pins on the end plus a set of 4 pins for jumpers ( none fitted but it looks like they are for configuring master.slave etc).
Seagate site says its a serial ata drive but earlier info from on here says a ata has 2 plastic plugs on it.???
Someone please confirm.

Edited to add that seagate say its an Ultra ata/100 type


here's the actual drive and spec

[Edited on 31/1/09 by omega 24 v6]

i have a 60gb hard drive here from a 6 month old gateway that suffered red wine spilage, its yours for the price of a beer and the postage, I'll format it first. Do you have a recovery disk with your laptop or do you need a windows disk, you can use your own COA number, you'll also need the drivers which are easy to get of the acer website

If its an old machine you may run up against a disk capacity limit in tr BIOS that restricts you to using smaller disks.

I am guessing this is the connector you have if so it is and IDE (it actually parallel ATA but it is generally referred to IDE). This is half of a SATA as there is a second connector for power.

I have been recommended to get them from here (pre-filtered selection for your ease ) as they are cheap - never used them myself.

Hope that helps



Mark

Cheers mark so it is indeed an ide jobbie. Hopefully thanks to graememk it all gonna be fine.

Isn't this the problem with the recovery disc(s):

quote:

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set up to boot in the following order
Hard drive
removeable device
cd rom

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