need help w an aspire 5024 (hdd - i think...)

hi everyone
bought me an aspire 5024wmli, and was really happy bout it til like 2 days after purchase when the hdd died. back to vendor, replaced, problem solved (like 3 weeks ago). so the new one died today as well, and i was wondering if there is some problem with these series or am i the problem...

heres what happened: 1st one: configuring windows, installing a few thingies i need when the oh-so-pleasant blue screen appeared telling me that windows shut itself down to prevent harm to my pc. the usual thing i do in these cases is taking advantage of the reset switch on my desktop pc (well nothing else works, keyboard useless). no reset switch, well, ill just turn it off... press power button, hold it, hold it, turned off yay. after reboot hdd not really functioning, model in BIOS appears as none, s/n is just a nice array of unreadable characters. and of course, i get a nice message saying media test fail; check cable. oh almost forgot about the opereating system not found thingy... (no wonder if the thing cant find the hard drive)

and the same thing happened today, only difference is that this time i wanted to make the thingy wake from a well-deserved sleep, as soon as the screen turned on i saw the blue screen. i kinda felt that if i turn the computer off, the same thing would happen again (but as i had no other possibilities i did it). and yes, you guessed right, it did.

if anyone knows anything about what the hell went wrong there, please post it, even if youre just guessing.

doesnt really matter but this version of the 5024 has only 512 ddr in it, apart from that its the same as any other 5024 out there (unless im getting all the defective ones )

 

I would ask if you would send in the whole unit, sounds like there may be a problem with the machine...perhaps the power cable is having issues.

Maybe Acer is using Refurbished hard drives - those have a higher than average failure rate. In your place, I would probably buy another hard drive, use that instead of the Acer one - put the one that was in the laptop in an external enclosure, and use it as an external hard drive.

 

thanks for the reply
i did send in the whole unit. when i said the vendor replaced it, i meant the whole laptop. when they saw the thing didnt start they just gave me a new computer w/o any questions.
im not really blaming the hard drive. i was wondering if the mobo had some sort of a protection against damage to the hdd when turning off. i mean something like a capacitor that can "store" enough current for the heads to park in case of turning it off. (yes, that DOES sound stupid, im sure they use something like that). its just that... well this is noobish but i accidentally shorted my desktop mobo while installing fc4. and the computer started beeping like mad, turned itself off, i was sure both my hard drives are gone. and they werent. now, if a desktop pc can take something like that even though the mobo turned itself off i dont see why a laptop has to be "unprotected" agains a quick power-off.

 

got the new hdd, works like a charm

 

That's great you got a new machine I own an Aspire too, but mine is the 5500 series, and I got a Seagate Momentus HDD 5400rpm. It works like a charm, quiet too! I was curious about what brand was the hard disk that failed, and each time you got a replacement was it with the same brand hard disk? Sometimes in even the same model you get a different brand hdd. I doubt Acer would use refurbished equipment in their laptops without informing the user first. Anyways good luck with your new pc
:centrino: