AAO dead?

I have had my AAO for only a few months. It has worked fine until Sunday night. While I was using it, it shut down. When it restared, this message appeared:

Check cable connection..!
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key

I had actually bought an external device and made the recovery disks, so I tried this. It seemed to take. The directions told me to keep the computer plugged in and let it run. I did. I put the second disc in when the time came. At the conclusion, it said the computer would have to restart itself. It did and I waited anxiously.

When it restarted... Same error message popped up!

I am still under warranty and plan to send it back, but I *do* want to get my files first. Especially since I just bought a bunch of music off iTunes two days before the computer stopped working and also have several work projects saved on the netbook.

A friend suggested hitting <F8> repeatedly upon starting so I could start in safe mode. All that did was cause a lot of beeping, after which it went back to the error message.

If I press <F2> while it is starting, I am able to get into setup, but I am not sure what to do from there. (I am not very savvy in how to make everything run, just in how to use it once it's running). There is a model name and serial number for the HDD, so I assume it's still there.

ANY ideas on how to get my files?

Thanks so much!

peace,
katharine

 

Looks to me like someone has changed your BIOS settings to tell the AAO to boot from a network device.

Use F2 to access your BIOS and look for the Boot Device order, make sure your first boot device is the internal hard drive (it's easy to identify in the list). If it's already there as your first device, then it sounds like your AAO can't boot from the HDD, which means, it's probably cactus. Acer will probably replace it under warranty but say goodbye to all your data.

You can always get a cheap external USB SATA drive enclosure for the small 2.5" hard drive in your AAO and hook it up to another PC and retrieve your files (if the drive isn't too dead)

P.S:- You haven't mentioned which model AAO you're using, so if you have a model with an SSD (electrical) instead of a HDD (mechanical), then my above suggestions may be of little use.

It might be a suggestion to open your user control panel on here, and enter the details of your AAO into your signature, that way anyone reading your posts will know which model you are working with.

 

Thanks for the response. A friend directed me to the BIOS recovery at this site: http://tinyurl.com/yd85mdl, but it did not work either. I am trying the recovery discs one last time. Then, I will try to figure out how to hook it up to my desktop computer and see if I can get my files that way. (Any tips on how to do that would be appreciated; this problem has left me feeling very stupid, indeed, in regards to how the technicalities of my hardware works!)

 

By the sounds of it your BIOS is fine, so no need to attempt recovery there, just check the settings inside to see if it's still trying to boot from the correct device.

Also remember that if you're using the recovery disks (or recovery partition) it will erase all your data as well.

 

I ran the recovery disks again and was given the option of recovering my data, which - of course! - I chose. It took a while for both disks to go through, restarted itself, and still the same error message. Arrrgh! I am pretty much losing hope that I will get this computer working again, though still holding out that I may be able to extract my data. I believe there is a way to connect my laptop to the desktop to get my data? Is this difficult for someone who is not intimately familiar with the hardware? A co-worker suggested taking it to the Best Buy "Geek Squad," but they make me nervous for no real reason, plus I don't want to spend more than the computer is worth! Is it time to just give up?