# Acer Aspire 5100: BIOS Won't Read ATA Drives, Windows XP Won't Boot



## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

I'm working on an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop for my friend. (I've previously fixed this laptop, in my opinion it's a piece of junk.) I have two problems, which I believe are separate from one another, but I could be wrong. One seems to be a hardware problem, which is why I posted under this section. The other is most likely more of an XP (SP2) problem, but I posted both in case you can help with it as well.

Problems:

1) When I boot the laptop with the hard drive attached directly to the motherboard, the hard drive doesn't show up in the BIOS. Of course, because of this it won't boot. At first, I thought it was the hard drive, and I thought I had fixed the problem before. However, it must of just temporarily fixed itself. Also note that the CD/DVD drive doesn't show up as well, regardless of whether or not the hard drive is connected to the computer.

2) When I boot the laptop with the hard drive attached through an external enclosure (via USB) it boots the XP splash screen (yay!), then about 2-4 seconds into loading, it will flash a totally random BSD that I have no time to read whatsoever (boo!). I even took a video of it and could not get it to show up because the frame rate wasn't fast enough (cursed 30 Hz monitors, haha). It will then reboot, run BIOS, and do the whole thing over again, saying that Windows didn't start properly, etc etc. No matter which start option I choose, the various safe modes, last known config, or normal, it still does it at the exact same time every time.

What I've done to try to fix it:

· Thinking that the BIOS drivers may be bad, I flashed the BIOS to its most recent version. It reads DOS from USB fine, so I can perform any DOS commands, including the flash. This leads me to believe that it's not my memory or my motherboard (though of course I could be wrong).
· I've tried operating on a single memory module (the computer has 2), no luck. I have yet to run memtest, but I think it will be to no avail. Still, I'll run it overnight tonight anyway.
· I've hooked up the hard drive to another computer. The drive isn't damaged. chkdsc yielded no problems, though I feel that some Windows files may have become corrupted, hence why it BSD's at the same point every boot.
· I've had huge problems with this thing getting hot enough to shut off, so I put my own AS5 compound on the processor for cooling just in case. I've also sat with it in front of a fan with the bottom opened up to boot. Still does it.
· After I post this, I'm going to go and try disconnecting components one at a time to see if there's a hardware problem making the boot fail. Curious: if a device were connected improperly, could it cause a BSD while XP was loading?

A couple odd things to note:
1) When I added my own compound, the boot got like 1 second further.
2) When I flashed the BIOS, the boot went another 3-4 seconds further.
Probably irrelevant, but I figured I'd mention them anyway.

One last note: I don't have access to a CD/DVD drive due to problem 1, so I can't simply load the recovery disc, which I do have on hand, to fix problem 2.

Now that I've probably given you too much information, can you help me? Lol. My friend has been without mobile computing for several months, I'm sure he'd appreciate a breakthrough in this problem. Thanks in advance!

*PePPeR*


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## Madcatz (Apr 15, 2008)

Problem 2 - It gives you the BSOD because of USB drivers. The BIOS and windows have thier own USB drivers, when windows loads its drivers, it looses the ones from the BIOS and then can't see the hard drive anymore since its connected via USB.

Problem 1 - Some BIOS will not list what it sees connected to the laptop for hard drive and cd drives, even though they are there. If the BIOS does have a line that says Hard Drive - None, then you can start to worry.

How did you install windows on the drive? when it was connected externally or internal? can you boot from a cd? also you can check in the BIOS and make sure the SATA or IDE hasn't been disabled, or just reset it to defaults.


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Okay, that makes sense for the second problem. I didn't think about that.

As for problem 1, the BIOS is blank for the hard drive and CD drives, whereas before it used to show their model numbers. A year ago when I thought I'd fixed this same problem, sometimes it would show the hard drive and CD/DVD drive in the BIOS, at which point it would boot thoroughly, and the computer would be fine. But more often than not, the BIOS wouldn't see the drives and try to boot off the network card, giving me a network error. After disabling the network boot, it just displays a blinking DOS cursor and just sits there until I shut it off or hit Alt-Ctrl-Del.

I restored Windows previously one of the times it managed to show both the CD and hard drives back when I worked on it last summer, and this seemed to fix it, but it turned out a couple days later that the problem wasn't solved. I did this with the hard drive connected internally and from the CD drive, but that was a year ago, and now neither of the drives are working

Both the CD and hard drive IDE slots are not bootable since the BIOS doesn't recognize them.

The BIOS reset to defaults when I flashed it. The only thing I did was disable the network boot so I wouldn't get that annoying message again.


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## Madcatz (Apr 15, 2008)

only thing you could do is to try a hard reset.

unplug the ac adapter from the laptop, take out the battery, hold down the power for 30 seconds, put battery back in, and hook up ac power. If its a corrupted bios, this can fix it, if not I would start leaning towards replacing the motherboard.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Can you select (in BIOS setup) which device to boot from first? Does your laptop support booting from a USB device? If the HDD is removed and you pop in a linux live CD into the CD/DVD drive, would the laptop boot from this drive?


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Yes I can select the boot order, and it can boot from USB. I've booted to DOS from a USB Key drive to flash the BIOS and a USB HDD. The CD/DVD drive _doesn't_ work; the IDE in general isn't working, so neither the IDE-CD/DVD drive nor the IDE-HDD slots are booting or showing up in my BIOS. As for booting Linux, I'm not familiar with it to any great extent, only with what I've worked with at my school, which is minimal at best, but I could learn. Is it possible to boot Linux from a USB drive?


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Hi Pepper,

I must apologize for the delay in my reply. My connection to the internet had problems in the last 2 to 3 days (yes, it happens to us too :grin.

So let me get this straight... your CD drive and your hard drive does not work? Any errors that you see? 

Test the CD/DVD drive in another computer (same with the HDD). If they are working then it is still possible you can boot up from them unless they are already defective and need replacement or there's some error in your mobo or bios configuration.

If CD/DVD drive is really dead and there are no plans of replacing it (just yet), you still can install (I am saying this for XP) XP using the method here:
http://www.syschat.com/install-windows-xp-without-floppy-cd-463.html


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Lol. I understand. This laptop's not going anywhere, it's just training for it's future job as a large coaster 

Anyway, in a nutshell, the CD/DVD drive and HDD are fine, I've tested them both in another computer.

The only thing I can think of is a BIOS or mobo problem, like you said, though I have flashed the BIOS to its most recent version (which was long overdue).

The only error I get is when I try to boot XP from an external enclosure, which was stated earlier to be a problem with XP and BIOS driver differences for USB drives. Other than this, I have no actual errors like blue screens or boot messages.

USB is the only medium I can currently boot from since the BIOS can't figure out the hard drive or CD/DVD are there.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

If you pop in a bootable CD/DVD disc, and try to boot from it, do you see any errors? What messages do you see on the screen?


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

I see nothing, that's the problem. Would you like me to take pictures of what I see to help you understand what's going on?

It's like my IDE drivers just clammed up and aren't working anymore. The rest of the computer is fully functional, but the HDD and CD drives won't even show up in the BIOS. It essentially says...

*HDD Model: (blank)
HDD Serial: (blank)
CD Model: (blank)
CD Serial: (blank)*

Whereas before it gave me the models and device numbers.

When I boot, all I get is a screen with this:

*_*

The DOS underscore cursor blinking at me furiously unsure what to do since BIOS doesn't see the drives. Lol.

When I go into boot setup, I see a list that contains (in no partucular order):

*IDE0: (blank)* << Where my HDD used to show up.
*IDE1: (blank)* << Where my CD drive used to show up.
*USB KEY: (blank)* << I can boot from this, I used this to flash the BIOS.
*USB HDD: (blank)* << I tried to boot from this using an external enclosure containing the original hard drive.
*. . . Etc.*

My IDE is simply not working. Does that make sense? Should I go ahead and attach pictures?


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Can you post also what you see as your boot order/sequence in BIOS settings?

IMO it could be a connection issue... possibly a bad connection between mobo and hDD and mobo and CD/DVD drive... or worse a bad motherboard.


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

did that 5100 originally come loaded with vista?


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Okay, my boot order is as follows:
*
IDE0:
IDE1:
SATA:
PCI BEV:
USB HDD:
USB CDROM:
USB FDD:
USB KEY:
*
All of them are currently blank. The IDE0 is the hard drive slot, and the IDE1 is the CD drive slot.

TriggerFinger: I was thinking the mobo may be the issue as well. I remember my friend telling me that his touchpad also stopped working. I thought it might be the south bridge, but the USB ports, keyboard and other south bridge devices still work. Is it possible for a south bridge chip to go partially out? In the end, I'm probably just going to replace the mobo altogether. But I want to make sure there aren't any lower-cost solutions first.

speedster123: The computer came loaded with XP, not Vista.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

What I usually do is to take it apart down to mobo, RAM, power ON switch, and LCD. Then I plug in the devices one at a time (ex. try CD/DVD drive first and boot from it using a bootable CD. Try also with the HDD alone and see if it sees the drive.).


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## jsmainguy (Oct 29, 2009)

hey bro i hope you are still checking this forum,

I know the solution to your problem, it is a common problem on all aspire 5100's due to faulty soldering on the mobo, there is an ati chip that is loose that needs to be resoldered (i dont know how to do that) or simply pressed down.

try pressing down with one or two fingers directly under the windows key on your keyboard before you turn on the computer, keep it pressed until you get into the bios and now your stuff should show up, once booted into windows it usually doesnt crash and seems to only be relevent at post. i have fixed a computer with such a problem by removing the mobo and placing a piece of rubber inbetween case and mobo ontop of the chip so it applies constant pressure, i hope this is your problem because it is a very simple fix.

a sure indicator that this is your problem is if after bios the screen displays a blinking line at the top left and a second blinking line at about 2/3's down the screen on the left as well.


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Yeah, I'm still here. Lol.

Actually, I took apart the laptop to where the south bridge was to find the cooling method rather dainty. Only a small piece of metal with some thermal material was keeping it "cool," though it doesn't really work to keep it cool at all.

It used to be that if we pressed the case next to the mouse pad (i.e. below the Windows key as you suggested) then it would start. We discovered this last time we had the same problem, and resigned to that as a solution and dealt with it.

However, that stopped working back when I first posted this thread. Unfortunately, I don't have the right tools to remove and replace a south bridge, so we're eventually going to buy one of the same model with like a broken screen or something for $50 and then just replace the motherboard. Yay replacement parts!

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure that it'll help anyone who stumbles across this post via search engines or something. I can confirm that if the south bridge is going bad, pushing to the left of the mouse pad and below the Windows key makes it start if the problem isn't that bad. My friend will also be using a fan pad under the laptop after we fix it to keep it cooler. If anyone else has this problem, they need to buy one of these fan pads to help keep the laptop cooler. The kind of chip Acer used in this laptop is prone to soldering issues, and keeping it cool minimizes the odds of it getting worse. If pushing on the case stops working, motherboard replacement is pretty much the only option.

Thanks for reminding me this was here, jsmainguy. Lol. I kept forgetting to update it.


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## ticky_tickon (Feb 21, 2010)

I've been reading some of the 3100 5100 5110 acer motherboards all same board issue. The problem is the southbridge chip, I'm guessing it is a heat issue where components of board become desoldered when laptop becomes too hot. I've read different ways of fixing the problem but honestly this should be left up to a pro. I've been looking for a bga chip repair facility near my area, some are pretty pricey, as much as buying a board.


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## night_shift (Sep 8, 2009)

@ticky tickon 
you are correct, its thermal stress that causes this problem. To replace chips on a motherboard you need the correct tools and expertise to carry this out, I know I'm an electronics tech.

@peppertherj
If you are at the stage of motherboard repair on a laptop, honestly the economics and guarantee that there are no other problems, is not really worth it. PC mobos fair better to repair as they are not subject to the same thermal extremes as laptops.

At this stage you are looking at a replacemet mobo which can cost as much as a new laptop. Second hand is a false economy unless you got the correct tools and expertise to use it for spares.

When it comes to laptop mobo faults, its nearly always bad news. However as you are at this terminal stage there is one last ditch solution with about a 40% success rate.

Its a crude way of reflowing the mobo but worth a try, look at the video on this post#16.


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## ticky_tickon (Feb 21, 2010)

Found a video on what bga rework looks like, for those who do not know. Like mentioned before it is something left for the pros. A heatgun is very primitive, compared to the machinery used to rework a bga chip. If by any chance it works consider yourself very lucky. I wonder is if there is a way to prevent southbridge from failure, such as heatsink, fan, or anything that can keep heat from building up.
YouTube - Aoyue BGA 9000A


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## night_shift (Sep 8, 2009)

In my personal opinion and re-searching this subject, most cases where failure has occured to GPU and southbridge or any heat critical component, its the way the laptop has been operated.

Most people operate their laptops on their beds, carpets and laps. This blocks the cooling flow and sucks up fluff and dust. Over time and many high thermal transients the laptop starts to fail in the usual manner after about one and a half to two years (Shutdowns and BSOD).

Unless you have a healthy budget to spend on expensive professional reflow/replacement component repairs, new motherboards on a two year old out of warranty laptop, then last ditch crude repairs by competent DIY'rs is within economical sense. The Xbox reflows are a good example.

Have a look at post #8 here. This is about as refined as this crude reflow gets.

I am working on a more refind method for home DIY'rs.

_If you are reading this, someone open a fresh post on the subject and we can all share experiences._


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## peppertherj (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi guys. Actually, I've replaced the motherboard already. Sorry I didn't post; it totally slipped my mind. I found a laptop of the same model with a broken screen and cracked case for $50 on E-bay in December and replaced the old motherboard, and everything works fine. There were a couple hoops to jump through, but I got everything moved over. Fortunately, there was an exact match to the model I needed and there were no other issues with the new motherboard. I could be ironic and say I'm typing this on it now, but I've given it back to my friend with a warning that if he doesn't keep it cool, it'll break again, so he uses his cooling pad all the time now. Thanks for the help, though. BGA's are a pain. Lol.


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## Griffo (Apr 29, 2008)

Really useful thread here as I'm having the same problem with my 5100! I've been looking into replacing the hard drive as I thought it was that, but looking at this thread it looks like it might not be that after all. I'll have to open it up and see what I can find and reset anything that might be lose.

BIOS is giving me the same results that the OP had, blank IDE devices, flickering/blinking cursors on boot - very strange.

I haven't tried pressing the laptop under the windows key yet, so will give that a shot and see if that is the culprit.


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