Acer's USB Recovery Drive fails to install. How do I get it to function?(Acer A01-131-C9PM )

topcat7736

I inherited an Acer A01-131-C9PM which is completely wiped. It didn't come with any restore software and when turned on it says "no boot device available". So, I ordered the $50+ Acer USB System Recovery Drive from Acer and it arrived today.  I followed their instructions and the machine began the installation. It completed Steps 1 & 2 but 43 seconds into Step 3 it stopped, popped open a box which says "Deploy fail, error message=Create partition fail error code = 2147024809". I let it go past the error and it eventually reached 100% install...taking about one minute per percentage point. Three hours later it was still at 100% so I stopped it. I've tried a couple times but the message keeps appearing. 

To check the hardware, I hooked a 500 GB disk, with Windows 10 installed on it, to the USB port and as expected Windows 10 reconfigured itself and runs fine on the machine. Looking at the 32GB drive, it has 4 partitions which cannot be removed or changed. This is probably causing Acers installation failure but I'm not Acer and don't know how to get around the problem. There was a way to contact Acer but when I did they said the machine was out of warranty and wanted to charge me more money to talk with me about the problem. ~~ roll eyes ~~ 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

topcat7736

Enlarged the hole and now have a 32GB microSD card holder installed. I'll change it to a 64 or 96GB during the week.

 After much messing around with it, I managed to download Windows 10 1903 and install it. I didn't know it had actually been released yet. The first installation failed because the machines files weren't ready for it but the second one worked.That's a head scratcher because nothing changed!  Oh well, it's running now. The internal memory disk now has 11.1GB free and the microsd 23.9 GB free and all my stuff is available. I dumped windows onedrive in favor of Google Drive which gives me 15GB instead of 1 or whatever Microsoft lowered it to. If you have Amazon Prime, you can store an UNLIMITED amount of pictures on their servers. Google doesn't care what you store and you can hotlink the files. 

When the machine first booted, I thought to myself that it boots as quick as our machines with SSD''s. Then I remembered that the 32GB IS a SSD. Duhh.

Time to put something important on it....like Crossy Road... so it can finally become a productive computer.

JackE

>>>Looking at the 32GB drive>>>

The issue is this is not enough space for temporary installation files. The workaround is usually pretty simple --- a 16GB NTFS formatted SD card that can hold the temporary files. The installation ***should*** then complete without a failure notice. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Thanks for the idea JackE. I installed 32Gb of ultra speed SD storage and 64GB of USB 3.1 storage and the same thing occurs. While in Windows, I attempted to use the Diskpart command to remove the partitions so Windows will install. There is no combination I can find to unlock what Acer has done so I can format the 32GB memory chip. Maybe they have a secret combination of keys like ALT Backspace 9 which will unlock the machine but it's beyond me. And, I'm not going to pay someone there who won't know as much as I do to listen to the description of the problem. They charged me over $50 for a USB memory stick which DOES NOT WORK on a machine which is unformatted. I thought it would be able to unlock the memory but I was wrong. I've tried the UEFI and Legacy modes to no avail. The memory is locked into 4 partitions and I can't undo them. I removed the bottom cover to see if there was a bios battery but there isn't. There is a tiny button, like on phones LOL, which disconnects the battery but doesn't reset anything. It has an ancient Celeron CPU, which has snail speed, so it probably isn't even worth the time I've spent on it.This machine was a waste of money to make and surely the wrong one for anyone to ever buy.

JackE

The emmc attributes may be read only. Did you try at diskpart> prompt 'attributes disk clear readonly' before trying 'clean'? Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Yes JackE,  I tried the attributes and everything else I know which is probably why it's really messed up. LOL I loaded a current BIOS into it hoping the encryption would get reset but that didn't work either. If it wasn't such a slow machine I'd order a motherboard and replace it. Since it boots OK from a real hard disk, I'll just make a bootable USB drive and be done with it. It's not worth messing with anymore.

JackE

>>>To check the hardware, I hooked a 500 GB disk, with Windows 10 installed on it, to the USB port and as expected Windows 10 reconfigured itself and runs fine on the machine>>>

If you've already tried without success to clear attributes &/or assign drive letters on the individual partition volumes so as to be able to manipulate them outside of diskpart with file managers like explorer++, you might want to try partition management freeware recommendations at this link https://www.lifewire.com/free-disk-partition-software-tools-2624950  I've used both minitool and gparted to do a lot of partition manipulation that usually can't easily done inside the Windows environment. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

The internal memory disk is configured as a GPT which is why I can't remove its attributes. I'll try your link when I get a chance. In the meantime, I used the forum favorite Rufus 3.5 to create a WindowsToGo system on a 32GB MicroSD card and if it continues running OK, I'll change it to a 128GB one and just forget the insides of the Acer. Thanks for your help.

JackE

GPT shouldn't make any difference. Diskpart should be able to handle identifying, cleaning & creating both GPT & MBR partitioning on disk 0 and its volumes. Something seems wrong here? Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

I used the minitool tonight to remove the partitions and zero out the memory drive. After doing it a few times, the partitions still exist as they were before I started and the Acer Recovery drive fails in the same place. The emmc is locked by something somewhere. The Acer recovery stick should have taken care of everything but apparently Acer doesn't test for worst case conditions which is what this cloudbook is mired in. Driving a nail through that memory chip might cause me to feel better. 

JackE

Have you set and saved a BIOS supervisor password to disable secure boot? Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

It fails with and without passwords.

JackE

>>>The emmc is locked>>>

>>>It fails with and without passwords. >>>

Sorry. The emmc is toast. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

I tried installing 1809 from a DVD and when it shows the partition table, I can't delete any of the partitions. This is what the Acer recovery USB is finding too and is causing the installation failure. The four partitions on the emmc are not changeable by Diskpart, Minitools, Acer recovery or Windows 10. 

JackE

That's why the emmc is toast, not locked. Can't be written to anymore. USB sticks sometimes fail the same way. Can't do anything with them even using very low level Linux disk tools. Which by the way you might want to try if you want to be promtoed from an ACER Tinkerer to an esteemed ACER Diehard.  Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Great news Jack,

First, by posting the ridiculous picture from the ones Acer provides, I received a photogenic merit badge and am on my way to becoming an Acer Eagle Scout!

Second, while traversing the internet I came across an exact replacement working motherboard for my A01-131 for the price of $20 including shipping. It will arrive next Tuesday and an hour later this POS cloudbook will be ready for sale or to be used as a living example of what one should never buy.

Third, It may be good to take along on camping trips and Fourth, I'll have you around to fix it if it quits again.

Have a great day!  LOL 

Al

JackE

Well, yeah, $20 with free shipping sounds like good news. And a photogenic merit badge to boot sounds good too. But have you considered how much time you've already spent on this thing even at minimum wage? You coulda been mowing my lawn. Probably earned enough for a verizon certified pre-used 1G smart phone that'll do more especially on a camping trip. If you're camping along the AT near the WaterGap I may actually be hovering above yelling down instructions.   Good luck and have fun with it!  Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Fortunately the company I bought the board from sent it by U.S. Mail and instead of arriving next Tuesday it will be arriving today!

We had a trailer in Branchville, Harmony Ridge Campground, on the eastern mountain side of Stokes State Forest, halfway to the AT, for 16 years. Last year it was overrun by mice (we killed almost 100 of them and they kept coming) and we scrapped it. I know where the nests are and if I could have acquired some napalm they would have found out what it was like to live underground during the 60's. You probably sent the mice down to get us. So, it was either back to tent camping or to our Coleman popup. We chose the latter and moved to Matawan outside of Cheesequake State Park (CSP). The popup is in a storage area on 35 about two miles away and we can easily get to it whenever we desire. Unfortunately, CSP is completely booked most weekends requiring us to reserve a site without knowing what the future weather will be. (Always use weatherplanner.com when planning future events. While not 100% accurate, it's better than nothing). If you'd cut your lawn, I could just use your yard for and have free access to water, electricity, toilets, showers and food.

While typing this, I heard a truck go by outside and the USPS vehicle is finally here. The mail woman is doing the buildings across the street and will soon be delivering my new used motherboard. Before noon, I should be up and runing with an ultra powerful Celeron ~~ roll eyes ~~. Who's going to pay me for all the time I've spent on this POS? 

Oh, we learned not to have Verizon when traveling Mine Road or being out near the Delaware. Their reception is awful. We've switched to AT&T which has great coverage and using their $50/month prepaid plan and giving them a credit card to charge means we only pay $40/month for 8GB of 4GLTE and then unlimited data at a lower speed. 

The mail woman just brought my new used motherboard so I must go screw around with the laptop again.

Al

JackE

Good luck. Yeah, I've also noticed deadspot in that area. It's one of the few unusual deadspots in my playgrounds between here and the FingerLakes region. One other one like that is on trails/roads descending into Naples NY. Completely dead. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Only took a few minutes to install and it's up and running.....Windows 10 1511 home version. I'm making a recovery USB of it, in case the one from ACER won't work. The strange thing is the new used board was in a sealed bag from Acer so it wasn't removed from a machine, it's NEW. The one in the machine was from 2016 and this one 2017. There is one difference. It seems in that one year time frame Acer, in their infinite wisdom, decided to move the SD card holder from spot 1 to spot 0. This means a SD card misses the holder by an inch or so. I'll need to use my Dremel to cut an elongated hole in the bottom plastic case to allow usage of the holder. Once that's done, I'll be able to insert a large SD card and use it as actual storage for the machine. 

The new board gave me McAfee for a year but I went to Kaspersky and found the utility to dump it. Windows Defender and Malwarebytes 3.0 is a better choice plus I have a couple open Kaspersky Total Security licenses available. Too bad the machine didn't come with Windows Pro instead of Home. I'm never happy.

JackE

Congrats. As far as I'm concerned, Defender and MSRT is all that's needed. The only thing extra I sometimes use is McAfee stinger scanner freeware. I've found to be quite good and updated about once a week. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Enlarged the hole and now have a 32GB microSD card holder installed. I'll change it to a 64 or 96GB during the week.

 After much messing around with it, I managed to download Windows 10 1903 and install it. I didn't know it had actually been released yet. The first installation failed because the machines files weren't ready for it but the second one worked.That's a head scratcher because nothing changed!  Oh well, it's running now. The internal memory disk now has 11.1GB free and the microsd 23.9 GB free and all my stuff is available. I dumped windows onedrive in favor of Google Drive which gives me 15GB instead of 1 or whatever Microsoft lowered it to. If you have Amazon Prime, you can store an UNLIMITED amount of pictures on their servers. Google doesn't care what you store and you can hotlink the files. 

When the machine first booted, I thought to myself that it boots as quick as our machines with SSD''s. Then I remembered that the 32GB IS a SSD. Duhh.

Time to put something important on it....like Crossy Road... so it can finally become a productive computer.