In serch of a VGA Adapter for Acer Aspire easyStore H340

RJohnson45231
RJohnson45231 Member Posts: 5

Tinkerer
edited October 2023 in Servers & Storage
Has anyone used a VGA Adapter cable for their Acer Aspire easyStore H340 to view/edit their BIOS settings? This headless NAS can have a Video card added but there is also someone on ebay selling a custom 22 pin to VGA cable (search for: "VGA Adapter for Acer Aspire easyStore H340 H341 H342 and Lenovo IdeaCentre D400") for $30 + shipping. I'm wondering if this works and if it does, any one want to sell theirs?
We lost our password for a church NAS and need to reset it via CUnlocker utility from a thumb drive boot. After recovery, we will retire the easyStore.
Thanks in advance for any replys


Answers

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,165 Trailblazer
    edited March 2021
    RJohnson45231 said:
    Has anyone used a VGA Adapter cable for their Acer Aspire easyStore H340 to view/edit their BIOS settings? This headless NAS can have a Video card added but there is also someone on ebay selling a custom 22 pin to VGA cable (search for: "VGA Adapter for Acer Aspire easyStore H340 H341 H342 and Lenovo IdeaCentre D400") for $30 + shipping. I'm wondering if this works and if it does, any one want to sell theirs?
    We lost our password for a church NAS and need to reset it via CUnlocker utility from a thumb drive boot. After recovery, we will retire the easyStore.
    Thanks in advance for any replys



    That is very unfortunate but, Acer Community does not allow any information and/or tools on any 'editing of BIOS settings' its best that you send your Acer Aspire easyStore H340 to an experienced Acer technician so that they can rectify your problem. Don't attempt to recover passwords or do anything within a bios, as it can do more damage than fix your problem as you might brick your desktop. 
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    There is a debug port on the motherboard, and it looks like they are pulling data for a VGA signal off that. The supported way to put a monitor on is with a VGA card plugged into the PCIe x4 slot through. There isn't an issue here with discussing making BIOS changes as long as you're not trying to bypass security, but obviously you are trying to do just that if you are trying to bypass the OS passwords. Acer support can provide help with password issues.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • RJohnson45231
    RJohnson45231 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    billsey said:
    Acer support can provide help with password issues.
     Thanks billsey, finally got customerselfcare.acer.com to recognize my SNID (had to scan the barcode as 22 characters is way too many with 1, i, I, l, L ect. looking alike in their small font) and got the verification code right. That got me in and I sent them my details. Previously, I had tried for several hours to get in unsuccessfully. Thanks to your encouragement, I tried again and it finally worked.


  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Good deal! Let us know how that ends up working out...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • RJohnson45231
    RJohnson45231 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    billsey said:
    Good deal! Let us know how that ends up working out...
    Well, it did not end well!!! Here is the email from Acer: "Thank you for contacting Acer. We understand it can be frustrating when a product does not work properly, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We have received your online request for repair; unfortunately, we are unable to complete your request. Due to the age of the unit, should replacement parts become necessary, they may not be available.  For support with the Data Recovery issue please check with your local computer repair services or you may use the Google search to find more options.  We apologize for any inconvenience."
    Couple of thoughts:
    1). Replacement parts are not needed for a password workaround
    2). They specifically said: "you may use the Google search" so, since I found this community using a Google search, seems like they are allowing replies that might relate to password workarounds.
    3). I inherited this H340 mess and the lack of direct support from Acer. This bad experiance will eliminate all Acer products from any future buying decision on my part.
    4). We are moving to a cloud aware NAS from Synology and hope that we can put the H340 in the recycle bin ASAP.



  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    edited March 2021
    Well, I can't say I'm surprised they don't have parts, the H340 is well over ten years old after all. My guess is the Google search suggestion is a round about way to tell you to look into changing the password using Windows administrator tools. You pretty much need a display for that, even if Remote Desktop is enabled... Windows Home Server (which was based on Server 2003) was replaced by Windows Server Essentials several years later, and Windows Server Essentials has pretty much gone away as well since then. It's really just the  normal obsolescence that comes with really old equipment. It might be easier to do the data recovery on a second system, IIRC the H340 uses JBOD for the disks, so no proprietary RAID formatting other than what Windows does. If you can find a copy of the Windows Home Server from that era you could install it on a separate machine, then mount the disks and recover the data.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • RJohnson45231
    RJohnson45231 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    I wonder if there's anyone in this Acer Community who might be able to take their data drives out of their H340, could put our 2 drives into their server and pull our data off onto another drive? We certainly could pay the shipping cost of transferring the drives both directions and perhaps even provide some renumeration.
    If someone is willing to do this, could you private message me.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    The issue there is if they install your drives instead of theirs they'll be stuck behind the same password issue you have.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • RJohnson45231
    RJohnson45231 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    Does anyone have a VGA Adapter for Acer Aspire easyStore H340 that they are not using that I could buy for less than the $30 they are selling for on ebay? Please PM me.
    Thanks

  • Oully
    Oully Member Posts: 1 New User

    Did you ever get this sorted out? I’m in a similar predicament, cannot remember password but need the data on the drives. Tried recovering using recovery disc but it’s still asking for a password when I try to reinstall connector software (or when I try to reach remotely). Would now like to add a vga card so I can try to get that way. Curious if you solved your issue and how you managed to do it.

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