Have had Acer Aspire One about 18 months. Will no longer boot. Get message, "This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any ket to try again ..."

Do not understand instructions for using the Recovery DVD, Linux V1.0.11.

What should I do?

Help is appreciated.

Which Linux distro is in use & how much RAM is in your notebook (or netbook?) ?

The forum at aspireoneuser.com has many discussions regarding how to use the recovery DVD.

However, what you should do is install a modern Linux distro. Fedora 13 and Ubuntu 10.04 both work well for me.

Help I am a Windows user that was thinking I would like to move to Linux, but you people have a whole new lingo that I just don't fully understand. I am taking it that distro means version. I would very much love step by step instructions in language I can understand. My Acer Aspire 1 netbook with very little hard drive, I think it is 8 GB, with a 16 GB SD card needed to be sent back to factory install. Mainly Mozilla wasn't working, and I couldn't get online to update it. So I have tried to use the recovery CD that came with the netbook. Naturally I am now not able to get anywhere on the netbook. I get the same error screen others are talking about. The CD is not working. Is there some kind soul out there that can help me with point form instructions on where to get newer files, what version to download, I think it had ubuntu, but I am not sure about that now. I know I am not supposed to compare MS to Linux, but . . . when you are used to MS (and believe me I complain all of the time about the vulnerabilities, and how MS products do not use common sense.), I found the Linux learning curve on the net book to be very unfriendly. So is there someone out there who can unravel the situation? I am thinking perhaps to have it fixed for me . . . but it might be just as cheap to buy a new one?

Snodinn:
The 8GB drive inside your AA1 is a solid state drive (SSD), not a hard drive (HDD). Just thought I'd clear that up.

Now, how to restore Linpus without using a cd. First, you need a recovery file. You can get it here (grab the file with the .gz suffix). Next, uncompress the file (7zip should do it). The next step is to write the uncompressed recovery file to a USB flash drive. This is the step where people screw up. You don't want to copy the recovery file to a formatted flash drive, you want to overwrite the whole flash drive with the recovery file, just like you burn an iso file to a CD. I believe Nero will allow you to do this (it's much simpler in Linux and doesn't require special software). Plug the flash drive into your AA1, boot (from the flash drive), and you should be ready to go.

Thank you Rock Doctor. I just was informed of your message, so will have to try this tomorrow. Thank you too for putting me straight on the proper hardware name for the memory i.e. SSD.

As soon as I am able to try it out . . . I will let you know, hopefully with a satisfied smile on my face.

Rock Doctor

I have downloaded the file and got the message something was broken. So I am downloading it again. I am not entirely sure how to go about using Nero to put the files on my thumb drive. But . .

What I think I should choose to do is Nero's Create New Drive Back up as it backs up system files. I tried this using the extracted file with an error, (Thank you for pointing me in the direction of 7-zip) and it seems to do what it is supposed to do. I.e. picks up the files off from my laptop hard drive as though they were a drive. It does ask for a drive letter, and I am not sure if the file structure is the same on Linux. It has been so long since I was able to use the netbook.

I will try this again once the file has downloaded again.

Well after hours and hours of trying a resetting and trying again, no luck. I am now getting BOOTMGR is missing. I used Nero to make my thumb drive a system drive. But when I copied the information over it copied the path from the laptop hard drive. So then I removed the path, and it still didn't work. I have been at this all night, and am becoming to believe I should just throw the dam thing out and go buy a blackberry!!!

If you have a simple fix I would love to hear it, but other then that the time I have spent has cost me enough sleep. I live in a remote place, and tech people are at a minimum, especially when it comes to Linux.

Thank you.

I tried googling for a solution and couldn't find one - guess my google skills aren't up to snuff. I hate to see you struggling to reinstall Linpus. There are many superior Linux distributions out there that not only work well on the Aspire One, but can be easily set up for installation via a Windows computer. The unetbootin utility is available for Windows, and will take an iso file designed to be burned to a CD and use it to create a bootable flash drive. If your problem with Linpus is just a corrupt bootloader, it may be possible to use a Live CD from one of the Linux distros that use version 0.97 of the grub bootloader (Fedora comes to mind, as that's my preferred distro) to fix the MBR (master boot record) of your SSD. If you want to switch distros, Ubuntu seems to be much more popular, and is probably a bit easier to work with for someone coming from Windows and not familiar with Linux. However, Ubuntu now uses grub2, so it won't work for bootloader restoration. Unetbootin will allow you to easily create a bootable USB flash drive from either Fedora or Ubuntu.

Here's what I'd try (on a Windows PC) - you'll need a 1GB or larger flash drive:
1. Go to the Fedora Project webpage and download the 32-bit (i686) iso format image.
2. Install unetbootin on your Windows PC
3. Create a bootable flash drive from the Fedora iso using unetbootin
4. Boot your Aspire One from the flash drive
5. Click on the menu Applications->System Tools->Terminal
The following is taken from a website I've long-forgotten, but I do use it a lot [and note - you'll probably be using (hd0) or (hd0,0) rather than (hd0,3)]:
11. Reboot (from the SSD rather than the flash drive)
If it works, you're done. If not, time for plan B.

I really hope you don't need a plan B

What is plan B? I just spent a few hours trying to get my Aspire 1 up and running. Wrote to Acer and told them I would like to send it back to them with a pile of dog poo in the package. I believe I went through the steps you provided properly, and I think I made progress . . . but I get the screen that says booting from the default boot in 10 seconds, I think, and then it starts the countdown over and over again.

LOL I wrote to my account rep at Tiger Direct and said I am thinking about cutting my losses (time is money) and buying a tablet.

You did a pretty good job of giving me step by step instructions but lost me at #5. But in reality checking over what you wrote again . . . I don't think I got that far. It really is a shame as it would do what I am looking to do until I our local cell company gets smart phones in.

From what you wrote, it appears that you were unable to boot from the flash drive. Definitely not a good thing. Plug in the flash drive, turn the AA1 on, hit F12 and ensure the boot order is correct (#1 should be the USB HDD/Flash Drive). Not sure what to tell you if it doesn't work.

LOL Oh yes it did something using the USB. But then wouldn't go any further. I am just going to cut my losses. Thank you for trying. If I find someone who won't charge me an arm and a leg to get it up and running again . . . well then I will pay to have it done. Otherwise it really isn't any good as a paperweight.

Hope you can get it up and running. I've got a not-even-good-as-a-paperweight tablet sitting behind me here in my office. If you're going to trash the Aspire One (which, hopefully, you won't have to do), I'll pay for shipping to take it off your hands. I'd like to examine the innards, but am afraid to open mine - last time I opened up a laptop nothing good came of it.

I have a couple of AAO's and the first one I purchased had a boot up problem after a few
months use. What I did to fix mine after a google search was to use the Acer BIOS flash utility.
I used the instructions found here at this link AAO_BIOS_Recovery and I keep that flash utility with instructions on a 256MB usb flash drive.
I had to use it again about 6 months ago. Give it a try before ditching your unit.

phil

I have an Aspire One (model D150) and have successfully loaded Fedora 14 LiveCD (from USB stick).

In order to get it to work for you, you'll need access to another computer with internet access.
1. Download the Fedora 14 LiveCD .iso file to your computer. You can find it here: http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora
2. Then download and install the LiveCD Creator from Fedora's site: http://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator.
3. Run the LiveCD Creator program and have it install to your usb stick from the .iso image. (You'll need a stick no larger than 4GB formatted FAT to allow the Aspire One to recognize it in boot.)
4. Once you've created your Fedora 14 USB stick, plug it into your Aspire One and hit F12 when you see the Acer splash screen and select the USB stick as your boot device.

Fedora will then load. Once it has started and you're on the Fedora desktop, you will see an icon to allow you to install Fedora to your computer. Follow the instructions and you'll be fine.

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