Aspire E11 E3-112-C6ME

Hi all, thanks in advance for your help.

Yesterday I had my laptop Aspire E11 E3-112-C6ME turned on when a small object fell on the keyboard and the screen frezed. As it wasn't responding, I switched off the power. Then, tried to start it and the Acer logo showed on, followed by a message "Checking media" on a black screen and a reboot, leading to a never-ending cycle. The laptop is not loading Windows nor going further from this cycle.

I checked the BIOS and it seems that the HDD is not detected, as the field is null in the info section. Then, I opened the case and took out the HDD, cleaned the connectors which looked fine to me and plugged the HDD back, repeating this action a few times. No success in booting.

Also, I plugged a different HDD from another laptop in my Aspire E11 and the BIOS does detect it, but it produces the same described boot failure. I even tested the Acer HDD into another laptop and is not detected as well.

What can I do to fix this?

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aphanic

From the troubleshooting you went with, I think we can safely assume the original HDD of the E11 is dead. The impact might have damaged it (if it was spinning its heads and platters, but maybe the circuit board attached to it, electronics don't like to be bent).

Given that plugging in another HDD (working I assume) seems to be undetected, it could have been damage to a cable connecting the both, or the connector itself. Please inspect the cable and connector in both points (to the disk and to the motherboard). If at all possible post a picture of the different sections of the motherboard, emphasis on connectors.

If you're able to locate the BIOS chip, note if any of its legs is damaged or dislodged a bit. It's probably a SOIC/SOP 8, they look like this:

It will be presenting different markings and they come in two or three sizes, but they're unmistakable, they could be around the power area.

We will then assess and provide options to try. For example, since the machine turns on and shows the Acer logo I can already be certain the BIOS ROM chip is still in its place, we could try upgrading it to a newer revision and see what happens.

Are you able to access the BIOS by the way? Was the boot menu enabled before all this happens? Because if you can we could boot into some live environment in a USB stick to find out more.

Commodore_1995#

The problem is that the sata connector is soldered on the @aphanic motherboard, see:

https://youtu.be/5OT_RnjMess

In addition, as the other hard drive was detected by the bios, it is possible that the user @Jalak just had to reinstall windows.

aphanic

egydiocoelho said:

The problem is that the sata connector is soldered on the @aphanic motherboard
[...]
In addition, as the other hard drive was detected by the bios, it is possible that the user @Jalak just had to reinstall windows.

Ohhh I see I see, I misread before too thinking the other drive wasn't detected either.

I wonder if it's just a matter of replacing the drive and reinstalling Windows. If it is @Jalak is a lucky guy/gal!!! It could have been much worse!

Jalak

@aphanic @egydiocoelho thank you both for your quick response. I enclose some pics of my laptop, as requested.

Do you think that the HDD is dead then? Could I still access it with a bootable USB to save my data?

I understand that I could replace the HDD with a new one, reinstall Windows (I don't know how because the laptop came with the Windows 8.1 preinstalled) and maybe have the laptop working again, but how is that the other HDD I tried was not successful at booting?

aphanic

You are correct! That's the ROM chip that holds the BIOS, seems a bit "damaged" for the lack of a better word but its connections look solid enough and the looks could just be because of the camera. There were other chips similar in shape in the board that I could see, but they're probably MOSFET packages, I doubt Acer employed backup ROM chips for laptops (at least for that one).

Recovering data off of the damaged drive can prove tricky, do you have access to an external enclosure you can put it into? I wrote this morning something that could help you try to access its data ( link ), but if you can't see it when connected via USB, or in another machine, your only option may be a data recovery firm (= $$$).

There are programs able to recover data of course, in my opinion R-Studio is if not the best one of them and although it's a paid program the free version can scan the whole disk searching for partitions, structures and data. Recovering would then require a license and it's worth a try... if you can access the disk that is.

Diagnosing a disk that can't communicate through its intended interface, and there's nothing wrong apparently in the connection pins is complex.

aphanic

Board looks good to me by the way, except for that unparallelled battery connector haha

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/i4/3fmk2e4ovgtw.jpg

Commodore_1995#

Would it be interesting to know if, when you connect the original hard drive, it appears on the bios information tab? In addition, does the other hard drive also appear in the bios information tab?

Jalak

egydiocoelho said:

Would it be interesting to know if, when you connect the original hard drive, it appears on the bios information tab? In addition, does the other hard drive also appear in the bios information tab?

The original HDD does not appear in the BIOS info tab, when plugged. See picture attached.

The other HDD does appear in the BIOS information tab, when plugged, but fails to boot Windows as well (and the cycle is faster).

Commodore_1995#

If the other hdd is detected in the bios, then it means that the motherboard slot is ok! Now, it is necessary to reinstall windows with the other hdd installed in E3-112, for it to work. Now, I find it strange to appear this information:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/6l/elwogir91qbn.jpg

Has your notebook ever been repaired?

Jalak

No, my notebook has never been repaired nor formatted.

Sorry but I got a bit lost in your last reinstall explanation: do I have to plug my other HDD in the notebook and reinstall windows from it? How can I do that if the other HDD carries a different version (older) of Windows?

aphanic

Jalak said:

No, my notebook has never been repaired nor formatted.

@egydiocoelho meant that it was odd that the UUID of the machine is all FFs, it could mean that something is corrupted in the chip that stores or handles that sort of information, that's why he asked if it's been repaired before. But it's running a pretty old system firmware revision, 1.08, maybe the computation of that field was wrong back then (we'll fix it later with a BIOS upgrade, which should be done anyway for good measure after the hit).

The problem with Windows, unlike Linux, is that during its installation it's tailored for the architecture the machine has. For example, I can install the exact same version of Windows in a 10yo computer that if I take the disk out of there and plug it into the one I'm typing from now it won't boot.

There are tweaks, fixes one can attempt to make Windows reexamine how things are in the newer machine; but it's costly (both in time and in $ because programs that do it for you aren't free, not terribly expensive though). However, if more than the architecture changes, for example if one machine had Intel graphics and the other had AMD it may be more of a hassle still because after booting you'd need to remove and reinstall all sorts of things.

My personal suggestion would be:

Get the personal data off of the working disk, anything you wish to keep, put it somewhere else if you can (an external drive maybe?).
Create a bootable USB stick with Windows installation media and use it to cleanly install Windows when the disk that works (i.e. that replacement) is plugged into the machine.
Update its BIOS (this step could be done before installing Windows if you use the recovery Macrium one I built before and you put there the new BIOS update for example)
Finally, install the programs you need and continue using the machine as normal.

And just in case you're lost with the links, here is the post in which I reference a recovery environment and how to get data off of a disk and here is a guide on how to install Windows cleanly.

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