Acer Aspire 1430Z won't get into window 7, can't use recovery.

I had my Aspire 1430Z for almost 2 years. Works very well and is /was reliable. I had a problem with it 2 months ago, where it had a problem starting but never getting to the IE page. I had just run my ESET Nod32, earlier in the day.
I managed to get into recovery and rebuilt from factory new.

Today, same problem, only now I can't get into recovery, pressing Left "ALT" + "F10" together when I see the Acer logo. It starts windows and says "wait a while". the HD lite comes on for 5-10 sec. and nothing.

Anyone know of this problem. Is my hard drive dying?

I am thinking of removing the back and unplug the HD and then re-plug it, to see if that will help.



Al

 

Use Linux to boot and check SMART status or better yet post all SMART attributes here.

 

By SMART are you refering to software to see what is happening to the HD or is it a program in Ubuntu?

 

That's SMART

Smart status in Ubuntu.

 

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-3.5.0-17-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, smartmontools

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Scorpio Blue Serial ATA (Adv. Format)
Device Model: WDC WD3200BPVT-22ZEST0
Serial Number: WD-WX71AB0A5335
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2afe8d58f
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Thu Dec 6 03:12:24 2012 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 7980) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 95) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x7035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 124 104 051 Pre-fail Always - 94750
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 154 128 021 Pre-fail Always - 1283
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2669
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 1871
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1881
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 27110
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 82
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 194 194 000 Old_age Always - 18447
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 105 099 000 Old_age Always - 38
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 1871 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Hope this helps

 

I performed a second test, using GSmartcontrol, this is a 95 minutes test. I beleive there is a read error.

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-3.5.0-17-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, smartmontools

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Scorpio Blue Serial ATA (Adv. Format)
Device Model: WDC WD3200BPVT-22ZEST0
Serial Number: WD-WX71AB0A5335
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2afe8d58f
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Thu Dec 6 03:49:31 2012 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 120) The previous self-test completed having
the read element of the test failed.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 7980) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 95) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x7035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 124 104 051 Pre-fail Always - 94750
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 154 128 021 Pre-fail Always - 1283
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2669
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 1871
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1881
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 27110
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 82
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 194 194 000 Old_age Always - 18447
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 103 099 000 Old_age Always - 40
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 1

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

 

Apparently there are two sectors pending relocation which is never good but it shouldn't cause sinuses like yours (quite a few more troublesome sectors would be needed)

 

A few reviews on this HD (WD3200BPVT) have talked about early failures, 6 mo. -18 mo. So I guess that I need to call Acer support and see if I have any warranty left on this drive. I bought this 1430Z, March, 2011. It has been a very good machine, until....

Thanks for your help. I hadn't used Ubuntu in a long time, so it took a little time to re-teach myself. BTW, when I would tell the computer to start normally, it would show the windows logo for about twenty seconds , then go to a blue screen with a message, Unmountable_boot_volume.

Al

 

Put your hard drive in another pc, backup your data, do a check on the hard drive using some software and if it's damaged you just get a new one..

 

That's a good advice by the way.

 

Yes, very good advice. However I don't have another PC that accepts 2.5 HD. Will a SATA cable work with the 2.5". If it does then I can do what xndbogdan suggests.

I ordered an eRecovery Media. I got it today but they sent discs, instead of an USB device. The 1430Z has to optical drive. I will call Customer Service tomorrow and see if I can get what I need.