Acer Aspire E1-521-0694 Won't boot after system restore

MrSmith
MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User
in 2016 Archives

Been using this laptop for a few years, and it had a hard drive failure. A tech savvy friend of mine and I bought a new SSD, unscrewed the back of the laptop (he had an anti-static wristband and everything), and put in the SSD. It took like, 10 minutes and was super easy, though maybe that's just cause he's such a computer whiz. Dunno, not my area of expertise. We re-installed Windows 8, and it rebooted once fine. I turned it off, and when I next went to use it, I hit the power button, the fan spins up super loud, the CD rom drive (empty) clicks twice, and it gets stuck on "Acer - explore beyond limitsTM" . The spinning circle of dots boot thing that used to show loading no longer shows up, and I left it on overnight and nothing happened.

 

Once it asked for a BIOS password, but I never put a bios password on it.

 

Pounding F2 or F10 on start up does nothing.

 

The one caveat is that a screw in the back left corner near the screen fell out, and the hinges and power jack were flexing up against the plastic, and some of the plastic is a bit damaged. My friend said the motherboard might be bent or damaged, but it was more or less running fine before the reset, except being super slow and crashing every once in a while.

 

Is there anything I can try to get it working?

Answers

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    if you try to press F2 at boot, it asks for a BIOS password?

     

    you can try also to unmount your SSD and check if it can enter BIOS.

     

     

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    Hi, thanks for responding.

     

    Hitting F2 produces no result (no asking for password).

     

    Removing the hard drive....yeah, it says enter current password. There was never a bios password on this machine...and the hard drive is brand new. What's up with that?

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    Check your Private messages.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    So I got the bios password removed, and almost got a system restore completed (though it took almost 24 hours), but as it was personalizing settings (after I had gone through and selected languages and connected to wifi and etcetera) it restarted...and is again failing to boot.

     

    Pressing F2 and F10 on start up does nothing.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    what it does during boot?

    black screen?

    reboot?

    stuck on Acer logo?

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    Stuck on the acer logo, as previously described.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    take out the SSD and check if you are able to enter BIOS.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    Hey, sorry it took so long...yeah, so I pulled it out (my friend got sick of me bringing it over so he send me a screwdriver a funny wristband and a youtube video), had no trouble hitting F2 to enter bios. Does that mean the new SSD I bought is **bleep**ed? That seems dumb.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    no, i don't think the SSD is gone.

     

    now, put the SSD back and try to enter BIOS, check under security if HDD password is set to frozen.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    Security:

    Supervisor, User, HDD Password all clear. Set supervisor password, user password, HDD password (none). Password on boot disabled. Secure boot mode: standard.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    what's the brand of the SSD?

     

    maybe there's a compatibility issue between the laptop HDD controller and the SSD.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    250gb Samsung Evo 850.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    very good SSD.

     

    i don't have any other ideas at the moment.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    Well, I appreciate the trying to help.

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    1. Did you have CD rom drive (empty) connected all the time?
    2. Try disconnecting it, reset bios to default and check if it works.
    3. If it doesn't work, boot using a USB flash drive and try recovery options.
    4. Additionally check if SSD works on someone else's computer. If yes you may consider buying a caddy and connecting SSD from your CD rom drive slot.

     

  • MrSmith
    MrSmith Member Posts: 9 New User

    4. SSD works.

     

    1. CD rom drive connected and empty all the time.

    2. How do I reset the bios to default?

    3...okay. Will try. Sorry for slow follow up.

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