Travelmate C110 - Restore CD's will not restore

Hello I am having a problem with my acer C110 tablet. I am trying to restore the computer with the restore CD's Acer provided (starting with the CD that says (bootable) of course).

The tablet is one of those mini ones, doesnt have a CD drive, so I am using a USB external CD drive. The tablet apparently attempts to boot to the CD, because the screen comes up where I need to choose between a USB cd drive or FIREWIRE. I choose USB, then it goes through Initializing A: and it lists some DUSE information (I will post the exact text when the tablet is accessible again). After this it shows a blinking cursor. The cursor stays there and the restore does not proceed beyond this point. I have tried letting it sit overnight thinking it may just take a while.. same blinking cursor when I get back to it.

I called Acer yesterday and the guy was nothing short of belligerent. I told him I repartitioned the hard drive, from what I've read so far on the forum here I am not alone on this feeling that two FAT32 partitions is ridiculous, so I made one NTFS partition (I guess telling him this was a blunder on my part) Although I see nowhere in my Acer documentation that customizing, specifically repartitioning my hard drive would void my warranty, he claimed the warranty was indeed now void, and I would have to send it to Acer for $200 to fix. He said I had altered the hardware. Obviously not one of the tech savvy types. He actually refused to get a manager on the line, something I have never witnessed in my history.

Anyways I am trying to restore this tablet and was wondering if there is anything else I can do. I have an Acer C310 tablet also, I tried using the C310's restore discs to restore the C110, which works fine. Windows actually completes installation totally, except when it tries to boot it cannot, even in safe mode. So that rules out there being a problem between the CD Drive and the C110. I have read about the 2 FAT32 partitions Acer does somewhat. Apparently the 10gig partition is the hidden Acer restore files, and the 30gig is for the system. If the system is not recoverable after repartitioning, I guess I have a serious problem here. I cannot imagine this would be the case though.

If anyone could provide any other suggestions I would really appreciate it. Thanks

 

The first thing to note is that your PC is just fine. The problem seems to be that your USB CD rom has some sort of boot loader or option in which it boots or tries to boot to a disk when hooked up to a pc. My guess is that if you are unable to boot off of a CD drive there are 3 things I would like you to try.

#1. Go and try a different usb cd rom drive. This may be your problem, if this does not work try something else.

#2. Check in your bios and see what the boot order is set to. It soundsl like currently it is A: USB C:. If you can, set it to USB FIRST.

#3. If all else fails try another usb port (I know it sounds dumb, just trust me)

If it works on your other pc then it must be a confliction with the bios or other issues. you also said it works with the C10 disks, so either you have a bad disk or a bad drive. (or a bad hdd)

In all of my interactions with Acer support they have been friendly, happy, and willing to answer any and all of my questions. If they did not do this I'm very and I mean VERY suprised!

Now as far as your acer "not being under warranty" because of a format of the hard drive on your part that is simply not true. The SOFTWARE side of their product is not under warranty, however the HARDWARE is. If he said you F'ed up your warranty b/c of a format of the drive that is not true. A simple reinstallation of windows will solve this easily. If you have a restore CD / DVD you should be able to boot off the disk, if this does not work then you have other problems as well (hard drive has bad sectors, unreadable usb hdd, etc.)

Hardware and sofware are completely different and by default yes it is not under warranty if you get a virus and you want them to fix it, but restoring the partition on a drive via THEIR software is under warranty. You just need to be able to boot to the disk.

If all else fails PLEASE contact me via private message. I can suggest a few other things to you before you bite the bullet and send it back to acer.

Thanks and hope this helps

--ssx--

 

did the tec register that the warrenty was void on there data base?? if not and even if he did call again and just say it will not reinstall at all. from the recovery disks, if they bring up the 'void' warrenty thing say it was not a hardware change, but back lash of that could be, they don't support the software...

i don't know try a local computer shop they migh be able to do it cheaply...

 

#1: I must not have clearly stated the situation, sorry about that.

I actually used the C310 Travelmate's restore cd's in the external usb cd drive that is plugged into the C110. The CD's booted and installed windows normally on the C110, then rebooted after the install was complete. At this point it freezes and is unable to boot windows (this is probably to be expected since it installed all the drivers/settings for the C310 instead of the C110 that it was installing on.) Correct me if I'm wrong but I think if the C310 CD's boot up, then the C110 CD's should boot up also, and this rules out the case that the USB Drive could be defective? If I'm wrong I'll try to get another external drive..

#2: THe bios is definitely set to boot from USB(or CD i forget which it is exactly) I know this because of the above is true.. the C310 cd boots fine. I've also used a different windows CD to test and it boots fine.

#3: I'll see if a new USB port works tonight..


Thanks again for the help

 

ah got ya now

Yes the restore cd is completely different than the c110, as a result it will not work. You need to get ahold of a windows xp tablet edition oem disk, or call acer and spend 200 dollars for them to repair it for you.

Send me a pm and I might be able to help you out on this one, I know a few tricks Acer won't tell you about getting xp installed on that tablet.

--ssx--

 

that would be awesome.. maybe if i could get a ghost image of someone's C110 hard drive i could just use that to reinstall it to factory settings?

 

Prophecy, I posted a response in the note about ACER warrenty, but wanted to followup here too.

I THINK the problem might be with the way ACER does it's restore CD's, I found that if I restored with partitions on my drive it didn't work properly, if I restored with a completely blank drive (no partitions at all) it worked perfectly (this was on my Travelmate 8204, it MAY not be the same for your tablet).

If you can get a dos disk and FDISK the drive to remove all partitions (or some sort of LINUX Boot CD with partition management software) you may find that works for you.

 

yea i've tried just doing it over the ntfs partition, i've tried doing it with 0 partitions, and i've tried making a fat32 partition. to no avail. I'm pretty confident its something wrong with the acer boot cd, too bad the tech was too asenine to give me real support. I'll have to call back soon and maybe get to speak with someone respectable as I've heard of people doing on this forum.

 

Edit: Bleh, I just read your note about the restore CD not working but the C310 one does (I'd missed that distinction) My best advice right now would be that maybe your C110 restore CD isn't actually a good image (CD's unfortunately don't seem to be THAT reliable, at least to me) you could pay Acer (about $40 I think it is) for a restore CD, that MAY resolve your issue.