Notebooks & Netbooks

[grb462]

My son's NE56R27U had a mainboard fault (a short somewhere on the board, couldn't isolate), so I purchased a new one from Gateway/Acer.  Well, the board came, and I replaced it in the laptop, and now it won't recognize the hard drive.  Before you start asking, I have two sons, and each has the same laptop, so I have been able to determine that the HDD is perfectly fine--I can put it in the other laptop and it works perfectly.

I also cannot use the Recovery Disk, it does not acknowledge it.

When the computer starts up, the splash screen now says "Acer" instead of "Gateway"....so I am concerned that there may be BIOS issues...

I looked at the BIOS (and compared it to the working laptop) and found that while the working laptop says it's a Gateway and has the serial number, the laptop with the new board says it's an Acer and has a bogus (123456789) serial number in the BIOS.  I think this might be part of the problem.  If I recall correctly, the recovery disk is only "good" for the specific laptop, and my guess is that it uses the serial number to verify that the disk "belongs" to that computer.

So, is this the likely problem, and how do I update this data?  I can pull the latest BIOS updates from the gateway site, but they are packaged to run from Windows.

I would appreciate any insights...

Gail

[Acer-Ryan]

I am sorry to hear that you had to replace the mainboard on your son's computer. The mainboard you received is the correct one, but the system would have to come into a service facility to get the BIOS fields to match the product it is installed in. I know this is an inconvenience however that is to product us and Microsoft because from the factory the product key is injected into the BIOS and that is why you are able to use the recovery software without requiring a Microsoft product key.

[grb462]

This is an extrmebly disapponting answer.  Let me guess, I have to send it in and pay for it, too....

[Acer-Ryan]

I did some more research on this issue after my initial post. I found that the BIOS being "Acer" has nothing do with the recovery media working or running on your system. I feel if you are unable to run the recovery software there is more of an issue outside of the mainboard. Also I noticed you mentioned the notebook is not recognizing the HDD, if the HDD is not being detected in the BIOS you may have a bad connector/mainboard and would suggest you contacting the reseller you made your purchase from.

If you are able to get the recovery media to run but run into a problem with the software authenticating we may be able to assist you and would like you to private message me your contact information if that is the case.

[grb462 · Accepted solution]

Replacement mainboard solved problem.  The computer booted up right away with Gateway logo, the HDD was recognized, Windows started up.  Furthermore, the serial number that is on the computer now shows up in the BIOS.  So...sending that bad mutha...board back....