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    Major Aspire 9814 problem

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by copter, Jul 9, 2007.

  1. copter

    copter Newbie

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    I tried to search information related to my problem but didn't find any matches.

    Today I just bought new laptop Aspire 9814WKMi. It wasn't 100% new, there was a previous owner that had it for about a week but then returned it to store and I got quite good deal from it because of that.

    First thing that I wanted to do when I got the laptop was to reinstall it completely with XP MCE 2006 (shipped with XP MCE 2005) and enable RAID (2x120gb HDD). There was a notice included with computer that if I want to use RAID, I need to upgrade bios into RAID BIOS. And so I did. I downloaded RAID BIOS R1.05 (that was listed as only RAID BIOS). It was zipped .iso file, so I burned it and rebooted computer with it. It booted, flashed my BIOS and no problems there.

    I didn't know that Acer uses PQSERVICE (or what was the name of that partition), so I didn't create any restore etc dicsc (I know now that I should). Searched them later from the package but without luck.

    After BIOS was programmed I went to BIOS and reseted factory defaults. Everything fine and computer boots normally (counts memory etc, not going to OS). I entered into Intel Matrix setup and created two arrays (destroyed data from both discs at the same time) and I was ready to install OS from my CD's.

    But now into the actual problem.. After upgrading BIOS (downgrading actually) I'm not able to boot from any media. Not from HDD, CD, DVD or USB. I doubt that LAN boot works either. I can go to BIOS and Intel Matrix RAID setup just OK and do everything there what I normally should. But if I try to boot from any of those devices, laptop just shuts down or gives a blank screen. I have tried pretty much everything. Multiple USB sticks that work in other computers just fine, multiple CD's and DVD's that boot in other computers just fine. I even took the HDD to another computer, installed partition that boots into Win98 and placed it back to laptop, but doesn't work. Tried with and without RAID. Both HDD's work perfectly on another computer.

    I notices that during the startup there's a message saying "No TMP or TMP has problem". That refers to some security chip. This model should have TMP chip, so is it possible that it's somehow blocking my attemps to boot the computer with any media?

    Computer had BIOS version 1.13 but it didn't have RAID support so that's the reason why I programmed my BIOS in the first place. Now I notices that there's RAID version from 1.13 too, but it doesn't much help since I cannot boot media from where to upgrade. :)

    Any help, ideas etc are very welcome. I'll be calling to Acer in the morning since they are already closed this time here.
     
    copter, Jul 9, 2007
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  2. daemont

    daemont Newbie

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    Wish I've seen this post before doing exactly the same thing (for exactly the same reason) .. and encountering exactly :( the same problem.

    Called Acer U.K, couple of hours earlier, and they were aware of the problem with the R1.05 raid bios update and asked me to send the notebook to them in order to reset the bios. I wonder, is this possible to do by yourself ? (like removing the motherboard placed battery, or.. )

    Any ideas?
     
    daemont, Aug 7, 2007
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