Acer Aspire X1301 HDD Problems

[Shadowwrath5]

Ill try to be as breif but descriptive as possible:

I have an acer aspire x1301 that was working fine until one day they computer wouldnt boot to my hdd. I tried several things including trying to reinstall windows (no hdd detected), removing and reinstalling components (hdd, ram, etc..) and clearing my cmos but nothing worked. Reading up online I found that many have fixed the issue by flashing the BIOS. So I flashed the bios from version P01A0 to P01A2 (and award bios btw). Still this didnt solve the problem. Ive tried changing out the hdd, changing the sata cords, changing from AHCI to IDE, changing the sata ports around (there are 2). Nothing seems to get the computer to read the hdd. It came with a cdrom drive as well and plugging it into either of the sata ports results in a functioning cd drive so I know the ports are working. Im at a lost on what to do next because I exhausted every option I can think of. Any ideas?
Also if I cant get the sata ports on the motherboard to work, could I use the open pci express to install a sata port and plug the hdd into that?

Miscellaneous information:
-Model: Acer aspire x1301
-Bios version: PO1A2
-Bios Developer: Award
-OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

 

[skitszo]

Take the drive to a second computer and install it like a secondary drive.
http://www.hdsentinel.com/
install this and run the short self test.
see if its healthy or not.

take the memory and test it on another rig. verify the memory is working without errors. most use memtest... i like using memtest on a bootable usb drive and just boot from the boot menu pre windows. test the memory one at a time.

If you verify the HD is healthy and getting read by another computer and the memory isn't throwing errors. then check the PSU.

throw in a known good psu to see if that fixes the problem....from here you isolate the graphics card by unistaling it and using a knwon good GPU or enabling onboard or APU graphics.

if everything seems to be ok. then you start assuming motherboard or CPU issues.

usually the only way to check the cpu is install it in a known good motherboard.
the motherboard is usually just ruled bad when everything is good.


could try replacing the cmos battery.. they are cheap.

 

[Shaun o]

The one often case as to why a hard drive is not detected has to do with a bios setting.
If by chance you have been in the bios lately as well as checking what mode the Sata ports of the motherboard are set to.
Be it Sata mode or Ahci mode.

You need to be careful if your motherboard supports any kind of raid array support from 0 to raid 5 mode.
If the drive in question is set to Sata mode or Ahci mode and the option for the drive in the bios is set to raid.

It is the reason why the drive is no longer booting, or it seems like it has completely disappeared.
Make sure any raid option is set to disabled in your bios, save the new settings before you exit the bios.

And if you still have an installed working os on the drive it should boot into windows.
You can confirm if this is the problem if the hard drive is detected by your bios listing it`s brand name and capacity.
If it shows. then it points to a fact that because it is a single drive. and if raid mode or the option is selected for that drive in the bios why it is not seen and you get the error of no boot able device found.

This can often happen if the bios has been reset, factory defaulted. in some changes.
Or if the cmos battery on the motherboard/laptop is out of power causing the bios to loose it`s stored settings and reverting back to factory default settings. The easy way to tell is to check the time and date in the bios, if it has reverted to a different year,date,month.

And the time is not right then you need to buy a new cmos battery to retain the current or saved settings in the bios.
Every time you power the system off, it will always reset the bios back to factory defaults in such a case.

 

[Shadowwrath5]

Take the drive to a second computer and install it like a secondary drive.
http://www.hdsentinel.com/
install this and run the short self test.
see if its healthy or not.

take the memory and test it on another rig. verify the memory is working without errors. most use memtest... i like using memtest on a bootable usb drive and just boot from the boot menu pre windows. test the memory one at a time.

If you verify the HD is healthy and getting read by another computer and the memory isn't throwing errors. then check the PSU.

throw in a known good psu to see if that fixes the problem....from here you isolate the graphics card by unistaling it and using a knwon good GPU or enabling onboard or APU graphics.

if everything seems to be ok. then you start assuming motherboard or CPU issues.

usually the only way to check the cpu is install it in a known good motherboard.
the motherboard is usually just ruled bad when everything is good.


could try replacing the cmos battery.. they are cheap.

The computer has no gpu, the hdd Im using right now is a spare from when I upgraded my gaming rig however Ive used some other spares and the chances of all 4 of the drives falling is highly unlikely. The one in the aspire is actually brand new because I ma have cough cough destroyed the old one... Tested the ram no errors. Not sure how to test the psu because it is a store bought computer so all the wires and everything are vastly different from the psu I have laying around. I actually had a cmos battery laying around as well (from an old project) plugged it in no changes 🙁

 

[Shadowwrath5]

The one often case as to why a hard drive is not detected has to do with a bios setting.
If by chance you have been in the bios lately as well as checking what mode the Sata ports of the motherboard are set to.
Be it Sata mode or Ahci mode.

You need to be careful if your motherboard supports any kind of raid array support from 0 to raid 5 mode.
If the drive in question is set to Sata mode or Ahci mode and the option for the drive in the bios is set to raid.

It is the reason why the drive is no longer booting, or it seems like it has completely disappeared.
Make sure any raid option is set to disabled in your bios, save the new settings before you exit the bios.

And if you still have an installed working os on the drive it should boot into windows.
You can confirm if this is the problem if the hard drive is detected by your bios listing it`s brand name and capacity.
If it shows. then it points to a fact that because it is a single drive. and if raid mode or the option is selected for that drive in the bios why it is not seen and you get the error of no boot able device found.

This can often happen if the bios has been reset, factory defaulted. in some changes.
Or if the cmos battery on the motherboard/laptop is out of power causing the bios to loose it`s stored settings and reverting back to factory default settings. The easy way to tell is to check the time and date in the bios, if it has reverted to a different year,date,month.

And the time is not right then you need to buy a new cmos battery to retain the current or saved settings in the bios.
Every time you power the system off, it will always reset the bios back to factory defaults in such a case.

THATS THE REALLY FUNNY THING! tThere is no Sata mode for the hdd which I thought was super wierd. Only things avalible were ahci and ide. I thought flashing that bios to a newer version could add that functionality but turns out nope.