Missing hardware in Aspire A515-51G-89LS

GGump

Hi everyone.

In November 2018, I bought an Aspire A515-51G-89LS. The possibility of installing an extra solid state drive when the available storage got low was one of the main reasons I bought this model. Recently, I reached that point and bought a 2.5 inch SSD from Crucial to install in the space provided in the laptop. When I opened up the laptop to install the SSD, I discovered that the laptop was delivered without any kind of mounting chassis or connection cable. No way to install the drive. All the support documentation and videos show the chassis and cable. They just haven't been installed in my computer.

Nobody at Acer will help me as it is out of warranty. I just get referred to fee-based technical support, who offer to answer different questions from the one I am asking. It's not really a tech support question anyway. Either their advertising was dishonest or there was a mistake during assembly. Warranty or no warranty, they should fix the problem but there doesn't seem to be any way of contacting them. Has anyone else run into a similar problem and been able to figure out how to actually reach someone who can resolve the issue?

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

JackE

If you're in the US or Canada you can request a 2.5" HDD/SSD installation kit from this link. However, the only item you really need from the kit is the ribbon cable part no. 50.GP4N2.004 less than $20 from Amazon. Laptops are already crowded enough inside with adding more screws and metal brackets. So I instead immobilize and protect all my 2.5" HDDs or SSDs inside the laptop cases with antistatic foam.

GGump

Thanks so much for your help, Jack. I'm not sure where you found that link, but it looked like it was going to be really helpful until I hit submit. I then got a message that my laptop model was not eligible for the kit. This seems a little strange since it looks like exactly the kind of situation it would be designed to address. I feel like if I could just talk to someone, I could probably resolve this, but there doesn't seem to be anyone that somebody in my position is allowed to talk to

JackE

>>> I feel like if I could just talk to someone, I could probably resolve this>>>

Highly unlikely unfortunately. Probably were very limited supplies prioritized to machine's still under warranty. Walmart still has 7 cables left with free 2 day delivery for $10. With a few pieces of foam you'd be ready to go.

GGump

Thanks again, Jack. Very disappointing that Acer would just leave someone in the lurch after delivering a product that was missing some components that were supposed to be in it according to their own specifications. The fact that they are offering to supply these kits seems like a pretty good indication that they know there is a problem. Even more disappointing is the fact that there is no way to communicate with them. I really appreciate your kind help.

JackE

Look at it this way. If the kit was included with your original purchase, the laptop probably woulda been priced $50 more for a coupla screws & a piece of preformed sheet metal that you really don't need along with a $10 ribbon cable that's essentially useless unless and until you spent at least another $50-100 for a 2.5" HDD. You mighta bought another brand.

GGump

You may have a point there, Jack, but they shouldn't misrepresent the product. And they shouldn't make it impossible to communicate with them.

GGump

Thanks to all who helped me earlier with this topic. I finally bought a cable and installed the SSD without much difficulty, the only glitch being that screw for the lid of the hard drive compartment will no longer stay in place, presumably because of the slight extra thickness of the SSD - not a problem since the lid stays in place without the screw. I am about to initialize the disk and am confronted with the choice between MBR and GPT. From what I read, GPT is the better choice as it is newer and has some advantages, but only if my computer can handle it. The OS is Windows 10, so no problem there, but it seems that my computer has to support UEFI. Can I assume that my 2018 Acer does support this? And is GPT the better choice?

JackE

Use GPT partitioning . MBR partitioned drives won't boot from a UEFI bootstrapper unless using its legacy BIOS overlay. You don't want to use the legacy BIOS overlay on your laptop!