Hello, i've got one of the initial eee pcs, an eee pc 701. A while ago I was writing on it in openoffice and suddenly it seemed to freeze. When clicking save, I got an error that sounded something like "could not access drive". Everything else from the running OS froze (i think it was an ubuntu 9.04). In an uninspired moment, I restarted it. Ever since then I can't load any OS on it or install it (it either freezes at initial loading or it tells me it can't read disk.)

Currently, when it starts, it takes me into a busybox prompt.

Do you have any suggestions for what I could use to find out what's wrong? Is there a tool that could check the ssd disk to see if it's dead? If it's dead, do you know if it's possible to simply replace the 4gb ssd, or is it embededed within the motherboard, meaning that once it's dead, it's well... gone?

Thanks,
Ioana

For drives which are S.M.A.R.T. capable (all the modern ones, as far as I know) there is the smartmontools package:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki

Basically, these drives have the built-in capability to run tests on themselves (for read errors and such like), and the smartctl program can initiate and analyze these tests.

Of course, you need to boot into some kind of environment that has the smartmontools. I think systemrescuecd has this now:

http://www.sysresccd.org/

From what I can remember about the original EEE pc's the internal SSD was removable and you could replace it with another one. Of course you could always just get a non HCSD card and use it instead.

From the symtoms that you mention tho I am not sure if the drive has just stoped accepting writes as you would still be able to boot just not write any data. Its possible that the drive control hardware has failed or possibly the interface the EEE uses has failed. Try booting the system from an external usb drive and see if you can access the drive at all.

Owning 2 EEEPCs. A 701SD and a 900 dual 4gig ssd primary with a secondary 16gig ssd.

What I would do in your shoes.

Make a Puppeee or Parted Magic live USB (or even Ubuntu if you still have the 9.04 pendrive)

Use ESC key to boot from USB

Open Gparted to scan internal drive and look to see if drive is full (all yellow) of writes.

If so. Right click on internal partition that is full and select check from drop down menu, Hit apply. See if it fixes your internal drive. I have ran into your situation running persistent live external linux SD flash drive installs. Doing the above has fixed those issues for me.

Thank you all for the answers. Eventually I did what rokytnji said (with pupeee) and my eee booted happily into ubuntu as soon as I restarted it. Thank you so much! Before running the check I got errors at any OS i tried installing it ever since it froze, so I assume it wasn't just a matter of reading the drive, but also of writing it.

Your method will surely be tested. My twin is going abroad and wanted the eee with her, so I'll be sure to show her how to use this solution if she runs over the same issue Thank you again!