Acer 5560 known compatible BIOS

peptobismal · January 2016

Okay... so I have an Aspire 5560-Sb653, with a dumb problem... that likely has not been solved.

ATAPI is a tunneling protocol for Windows that allows access to the optical drive; however, before realizing the optical drive was running strictly on this I had made a buy of a 250GB Solid State Drive. Clonezilla copied the partition table and the first two recovery/boot partitions with no issues, then hung up. So, GParted confirmed that the tables were as they should be after the resizing of the 500GB down to a size that could fit, ran Clonezilla with partition to partition clone, everything is working fine! Smiley Happy

Now, the catcher that I found was that the system does not like to POST or boot at all with a second hard drive connected to it; however, I do have a SATA to USB connection, only having 3 USBs means that taking one is a big a hit to connecting anything anything else.

So, I was wondering, will switching the mode to IDE instead of AHCI allow the optical drive to be something other than ATAPI, so I can use the caddy... or... here comes the dumb part that an Acer official site is going to hault me and go crazy with risk factors, is there a BIOS version that is compatible with Acer 5560 that will run the ATAPI device as something other than ATAPI? Which, I feel is the only reason that the system refuses to boot with the HD caddy..

Also, will the newest BIOS 1.15 that states compatibility for the Radeon 7xxx cause any issues with my laptop as it is not running the 7 series Radeon?

EDIT: I have found sites pointing to Phoenix 1.28; however, they show the chipset as Intel where as I am on the AMD A6, so reluctant to try it until I find some kind of confirmed information as to AMD/Intel compatibility for the BIOS.

Also, when I go to Phoenix's site BiosAgentPlus shows a chipset of 1705 which there is another machine on here matching that description, but it's a desktop. I really don't feel like paying $30 for this site's alleged updates despite that Phoenix reccomends but does not affiliate otherwise with them.

JordanB · January 2016

I'm not doubting that your problem is an atapi issue rather than something else.....but to find out for sure......install windows 10 on your clean SSD. I'll assume you don't have windows 10 with these instructions.

1. create windows 10 installation media on a USB or DVD using the tool.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

2. Get your original product key through the command prompt.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/find-windows-product-key

3. wipe your SSD with diskpart clean

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/The-Cru/Reset-your-SSD-to-factory-settings-Windows-DiskPart/ba-p/162503

4. Install windows 10 on your SSD. Select custom install. Left click on your SSD (unalllocated space). Left click on Next. Do not try to partition or format your SSD. The windows 10 installer will do that for you automatically and install windows 10.

5. After you install windows 10, change the key (use the key from step 2) so you can activate it (assuming you've never upgraded your laptop to windows 10)

peptobismal · January 2016

Okay, so first here's my issue with Windows 10, I don't want it. Secondly, the issue happens prior to even POST and doesn't allow access to BIOS menu and/or Acer splash screen. So, the issue is long before anything else happens is, with 2 hard drives connected the laptop refuses to POST. Without the optical drive, and obviously with it, the laptop boots fine no issues.

So, currently I have the SSD installed and working properly, but I cannot find a BIOS version that would actually release the tunneling protocol and allow the expansion to run as SATA, hell even USB would be fine. There are numerous other posts explaining this same issue, all unresolved.

I do believe that the issue stands solely with BIOS everything that happens after that seems null and void. I heard that 1.16 fixes this issue; however, the latest stable BIOS for this machine is 1.15. BIOSAgentPlus states that the BIOS is out of date, but it also shows the chipset as a AMD 1705. Upon searching for an Acer BIOS for that particular chipset it takes me to a desktop model of M3470G which happens to have a more recent BIOS; however, the BIOS version is not even in the format of #.## more a A#_##.

Also, another thought that I have had and have seen was that since it is ATAPI, I assume jumper settins would definitely change the way that it boots. Western Digital though only shows two settings for their jumpers and that is Reduce Power and something else... would the reduced power setting possibly force slave and/or allow this to run on ATAPI? I am sure I have some hard drives laying around with some jumper switches.

I found that Reduced Power Spinup setting of the Western Digital disk allows it over a USB, but I am still looking for more evidence that maybe this will also work on ATAPI, haha.

JordanB · January 2016

Check out the firmware patch.....

(I have no idea what firmware it's patching)

http://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers#_ga=1.16576373.234052101.1451861558

The Windows 10 suggestion was for testing purposes only. Not implying that you had to use it after the test.

Or get an enclosure for your HDD and call it a day.

http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar-2-5-Inch-External-Enclosure/dp/B002JQNXZC

peptobismal · January 2016

The firmware update is for the Western Digital 500 Gig drive, the whole reasoning behind the caddy was to eliminate the optical drive altogether. As well, to actually have a slave drive for my User Data, some of which would be OS-files that'd be nice to have locally rather than take up to USB ports on the system for a SATA to USB connector.

I will see what I can come up with.

I understand the Windows 10 was for testing purposes, but that test won't work if I can't POST. Smiley Wink I also have noted that UEFI BIOS from my research is cross-platformed so... so if I can get a Phoenix 1.16 to work even though the chipset of the "Acer Aspire 5560" shown on sites is Intel, I think I might be making strides the right direction. Just seems that Acer has specifically locked any conventional methods of flashing from working, so you have to stick with their proprietary version of WinFlash.