Desktops & All-In-Ones

[TheDoug]

Back in January of 2013 I bought what I thought was a solid product via Amazon, an Acer AME600-UR378. Has a fast processor and lots of RAM. Being a tech geek I felt confident I made a good buy. It wasn't super smooth, but I went ahead and added an SSD as my primary OS/boot drive. EVerything was peachy ... until now.

Just this week, I tried to set up dual monitor support. When the new video card connection was not being recognized, I decided to be smart and ask the Acer help chat service before mucking around too deep in the system myself. They kindly chatted away and suggested I should update my system BIOS, and even gave me a direct download link to the file.

The zip came with a simple pdf instruction sheet and so I gave it a go. Five easy steps, flash, reboot and my machine has now been rendered useless. I now get the blue screen of death, with errors such as "The boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors." Upon trying a refresh/reset, I get an error saying that the drive is locked. Upon trying to use the recovery disc I made when I first got the system, it says it is not a recognizable disc.

I have been given a few things to try from IT operations friends, but none have worked. SanDisk support suggested I update the firmare on the SSD, but that didn't solve the problem.

Despite this all taking place based on the file and recommendation of Acer support, I'm now being told by 4 different reps (thus far) that my system is out of warranty and they'd be happy to help once I gave them more money. I am angered and disgusted by this, in addition to being frustrated that I am unable to work out a solution thus far. Hours and hours of Googling and searching have given ideas but none that have worked out.

Thus, I throw myself at the mercy of this forum, in hopes that someone who has some sort of idea on how I can bring my pc back to life.

Thanks, in advance!

Doug

[Inspiration101 · Accepted solution]

Eek.

I would power up and look at the bios options.  On the end tab, should be called something like "Boot" I would set the boot mode option to the opposite of what it is now : Legacy / UEFI.

I would also check the bios options for any that allow change of HDD mode/Sata Mode from IDE to AHCI, ideally you should be set to AHCI.  ALthough bear in mind you may have a Raid option also.

Any of these "may" resolve your problem.

What Blue screens do you get exactly ? What version of bios did you upgrade to ? What are the first 10 digits of your computers serial number ?

[TheDoug]

I've already tried changing the boot option but no luck there. The BIOS I upgraded to is BIOS_Acer_P11.A4_A_A.zip. I was able to find version BIOS_Acer_P11.A3_A_A.zip this morning and have it in the back of my mind to try and flash backwards in hopes of reverting.

I have also tried changing the boot options on the SSD between UEFI and SATA. Didn't see IDE to AHCI but will look again tonight when I get home from work. I'll also follow up tonight with more specific current error messaging and the 10 digits.

Thanks much I101

[Inspiration101]

Top effort on finding the older version P11.A3 however I can only see a windows version and as your computer is not booting to windows this could prove somewhat problematic.

Also I noticed the bios downloads come with a PDF which says about loading setup defaults after having flashed the bios.  I presume you loaded bios defaults also ?

[TheDoug]

Hmmm. I wonder what version you saw, because the one provided to me said nothing of loading bios defaults. Here's what they gave me:

Document Revision: v1.4
Issue Date: 2012/09/03
Author: Jade Chen

1. Flash UEFI BIOS SOP for Windows

1. Copy BIOS folder under OS Desktop.

2. In BIOS folder, select WIN folder and run “BIOS_WIN.bat” as administrator.

3. After finish flashing BIOS, please don’t execute any programs and reboot the system directly.

4. When system reboot, please press [Del] to enter BIOS Setup

5. In “Exit” page, select “Load Default Settings” and press [Enter] key.

6. Select “Yes” and press [Enter] key.

7. Select “Save & Exit Setup” and press [Enter] key.

8. Select “Yes” and press [Enter] key.

9. Flash BIOS is finished.

[TheDoug]

The bad news is I don't know exactly what all the error messages were under different circumstances. I do recall when trying a refresh/recover, I got a message saying my SSD was locked and it couldn't proceed.

The good news is I'm up and running once again. As a last ditch effort before mailing my box to Acer, a coworker suggested I look into adjusting the SSD setting in the BIOS. It's a couple of levels deep, but I found the Advanced tab where I changed the SSD from IDE to AHCI, which just so happens to be exactly what you had mentioned I101! So bloody simple! ... I love tinkering, but am happy to go back to developing software

The bad ... How is it that out of 6 different tech support reps of different levels, not one suggested this simple change?.

The good ... I had actually spoken with an Acer customer service rep and upon reading my chat logs was willing to offer me free service based on the problem starting at the tech support member's suggestion.

That wraps this up, and I hope others can learn my all my frustrations of this week. 

Thanks so much for your help I101!!!

Cheers

[Inspiration101]

The info you have was spot on : 

5. In “Exit” page, select “Load Default Settings” and press [Enter] key.

I am glad you found the HDD type change option in the BIOS and this resolved the problem.  Congrats

To be fair although you went through several support techs I generally find call centre agents read from a script and are very knowledgable on theory and most of the time they work through their script and find the solution.  They are masters at communication - probably my weakest area

I however spend my time actually doing this kind of stuff so to me it is one of a million things I check when encountering the kind of problem you had. 

Anyways, best wishes for the future and I hope you get loads of use from your (now working) desktop computer.

[boldive]

Hello.

Your answer is not a solution. It doesn't even point to the right direction.

The BIOS on ACER don't work. All of them for Windows8 !!!! If you have running system DO NOT UPGRADE.

SATA controller has only two modes: Native IDE and AHCI. Nothing else can be choosen. Both modes don't work with HDDs. There is no settings to change SATA controller parameters.

With the BIOS from ACER "support" Windows cannot be installed on any HDD.

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR parition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardare may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS meny"

Those BIOS on ACER website kills SATA controller. You can't even load any resque CD/USB systems.

In my situation I was able to start only Windows 8 installation DVD in recovery console. Nothing else works. The only available tool is Command Promt to reload a right BIOS. The question is where to get a working BIOS.

I would expect ACER Customer Service to come with the solution. Looks like this is a common problem for ME600 model.

Thanks

[boldive]

Sorry Inspiration101 You are absolutely right. In the boot menu by default is UEFI support. This setting needs to be changed to Legacy. After that it works good. Sorry for my previose message. Thanks for your support.