Acer Aspire One AO1-131

Ok, I've been searching for a solution to this for awhile.

My son got the subject netbook a couple of years ago. He has since graduated to a full laptop and the Aspire gathered dust. I decided to get it going again and attempted to use the internal recovery to do a full reset. Long story short, it didn't work and now something has become corrupted. I am not a complete noob, so I decided to reinstall Windows 10 from a USB flash drive using the media creation tool. Everything seems to go ok until I get to the screen where it says "Where do you want to install Windows?". At the bottom of the box it says "We couldn't find any drives. To get a storage driver, click load driver."

I can see the internal eMMC drive in Bios, but obviously Windows can't find it. I can't see it using diskpart and I even tried GPARTED. I don't see a driver on the Acer website for the unit. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Accepted answers

All comments

IronFly

have you tried a clean all command on diskpart to completly wipe your eMMC?

Joe6pack

No, but given that I can't see the drive in diskpart, I don't think it will work. That might clean my usb. I guess I am saying that I haven't tried it, but I am skeptical that it will work and I don't want to wipe the USB. When I run diskpart, the USB drive is all that I see when I list disk, volume, etc.

IronFly

oh sorry, i missed the diskpart part on your post, yep...it won't work.

i don't have other ideas if it's not available on diskpart and gparted too.

JackE

>>> I decided to get it going again and attempted to use the internal recovery to do a full reset. Long story short, it didn't work and now something has become corrupted>>>

A bit more long on the story short? Any error messages? Was BIOS D2D recovery enabled? Is there any BIOS GPT partition recovery info? BIOS in UEFI or legacy mode? Jack E/NJ

Joe6pack

Ok, longer story. I decided to do a full reset via Windows 10 recovery. I have done this numerous times on other Windows 10 PCs with no problems. I chose to remove everything. It went throught the motions, but when it got to the end it gave me a message that there was a problem. My only option was "Cancel". This took me back to recovery. However, after this, I could no longer boot into Windows. I got caught in a boot loop/blue screen where it said "thread exception not handled" and below it said something about sdstor.sys was the problem.

It was at this point I decided to do a full reinstall via USB. In order to get the PC to boot from the USB (rather than go into the boot loop), I had to change the boot order in the BIOS. Somewhere along the way, Windows (not the BIOS) lost communication with the eMMC drive. So now, if I don't have the USB stick with Windows on it inserted, I get "No Bootable Device". I have also tried legacy boot, changing boot order, etc. to no avail. With the USB stick I can get to recovery and a command prompt etc., but it appears that the driver for the internal storage is missing. I have been working on this thing for over a week, so I won't rule out that I did something stupid along the way.

Acer has a number of drivers for this model on its website, but I don't see one specifically for the eMMC drive.

Thanks for the help.

JackE

>>>Ok, longer story. I decided to do a full reset via Windows 10 recovery.>>>

So does this mean you did --- or you didn't --- do the ACER Alt+F10 Win10 boot eRecovery as per this ACER video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuljT0a8F7I

Jack E/NJ

Joe6pack

I did it via the Windows 10 Control Panel. I have reset Windows 10 PCs this way before with no problems (we have six of them besides this Acer). I didn't know about Alt-F10 at the time, but it looks like it is the same menu. At this point, Alt-F10 works only if I boot from the USB.

IronFly

Joe, right now BIOS is set to UEFI or Legacy?

Joe6pack

UEFI.

JackE

>>>At this point, Alt-F10 works only if I boot from the USB.>>>

It shouldn't. It must be a ****full power off cold boot*** as shown in the video. Pull the stick out of the USB port when you try the ALT+F10 method. And change the BIOS boot order so the internal drive is ***first***. And make sure the D2D recovery is ***enabled****. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuljT0a8F7I Did you notice if the BIOS had GPT partition recovery info?

Jack E/NJ

Joe6pack

The internal drive is first and D2D is enabled. However, when I press Alt-F10 from a cold power off boot, I just get a graphic of a hard drive with "No Bootable Device". I don't see anything in the BIOS regarding a GPT recovery partition.

JackE

OK. Change BIOS UEFI to legacy mode. Also disable secure boot if you see that BIOS option. Then try ALT+F10 recovery from a cold boot again. Jack E/NJ

Joe6pack

Finally got back to trying it. No dice. BIOS is in legacy mode and secure boot is not available in the BIOS. Pressing Alt-F10 gets "No bootable device--insert boot disk and press any key".

This thing just cannot see the internal drive even though it is visible in the BIOS. I really think I am missing a driver of some sort. I have the option to install drivers when booting from the USB (in UEFI mode). When I boot in legacy with the USB I get "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.....System thread exception" and then it references an sdstor.sys error.

JackE

>>>I have the option to install drivers when booting from the USB (in UEFI mode). >>>

If this also failed, I agree that the eMMC somehow was corrupted by the re-set including its hidden eRecovery partition. At this point, I can only suggest that you buy the eRecovery bootstick specific to your machine. I think the price is ~$20. Go to http://store.acer.com

choose your country, then click eRecovery near the top of the screen. Jack E/NJ

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 265

Jack22 160

RenanVilela 95

Diya1811 90

GAMING6698 75

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™