Acer Aspire 1 A114 motherboard blown, information extraction wanted! Help!

ac12000

Hi theonre,

New member here. The motherboard on my Acer Aspire 1 A114 laptop seems to have blown, and the hard-drive has files on it i'd like to keep. I'd be willing to take it to a data recovery centre if that would work. What do you recommend i do? Thanks for humouring this 'aspiring' newbie.

JackE

All you need is a 2.5" HDD-to-USB adapter from a vendor like Amazon for less than $10. The connect it to the USB port of another machine and copy the files off of it. Jack E/NJ

ac12000

I took it to a repair man who said he had one method of data recovery for it, but said it was 50/50 and may not work, and that I should try Acer support or a data recovery centre first. I'm a novice so i'm somewhat hesitant to start unscrewing anything. I should add the motherboard isn't blown entirely, the laptop lights up without coming on. Appreciate any advice on this at all. Thanks!

JackE

Are you sure you have an HDD? Some A114s only came with a soldered 32GB or 64GB  eMMC storage chip which would be more difficult even if the LEDs light up. If it indeed has a regular HDD, this is a relatively easy task that a competent laptop repair person should be able to handle in less than an hour. If you don't know what you have inside, take it to another repair shop if you're uncomfortable doing it yourself.

You could also try unplugging the charger. Then insert a paperclip into the reset pinhole on the bottom if so equipped for about 30 seconds. Then pljug the charger back in and wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. Then try to turn it on again.

ac12000

I believe it's a 64GB eMMC. I'll take it to a repair shop. Is the situation hopeless if it's a soldered job? Can a decent data recovery centre handle something like this?

I actually tried that reset, recharge technique once and it worked ok, then I tried to restart it (oops) to get some internet connection, and not realising the gravity of the situation, and it didn't start back up again. Which is the point i'm at right now.

Thanks again.

JackE

Try the reset again exactly as described above. If still no joy, a mobile phone repair service is probably the best place to try to get the data off the emmc chip since these are usually used in phone motherboards. Since it usually requires desoldering the chip and reading it from a specialized socket, I's expect at least a 2 hour labor charge.

ac12000

That's some great information. Will do, thanks very much for that.

JackE

Good luck.  Jack E/NJ