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Subject:
From:
Don Penlington <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:02:28 +1000
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John wrote:
>You needed to have the SATA drivers available on a floppy and install them 
>using the "F6" option when it is offered....Check the Acer site to see if 
>they have SATA drivers available for this system.>>


I did that, and downloaded them to a floppy as instructed by F6. Went to 
install them and discovered this computer doesn't have a floppy drive, as 
seems usual these days.  Duh!!!  Acer have to be joking!

Tried hooking up a floppy via a spare IDE connection, but the computer 
wouldn't recognise it.  Duh again! Up creek, no paddles.

<<I probably would have written zeroes to the drive using the 
manufacturer's utility or Boot N Nuke, in order to be sure there was no 
boot sector virus present.>>

This also in line with Rick's suggestions. I've got a boot-nuke somewhere, 
tho I've never used it. Might try it out and see what happens.  The guy's 
been using Limewire, so a boot virus is a distinct possibility. However, 
after a full reformat I checked the free disk size, and there seems nothing 
on it, so I was assuming that the format would have nuked the MBR. Maybe 
not----I've no idea how much space MBR takes on the disk, prolly not much, 
so it might not show.

Thx to everyone who has offered help on this, I now have a few more options 
to try out. This BIOS seems to offer very few options. To make matters 
worse, the HD options I want to get to (SATA, AHCI) are greyed out and 
seemingly inaccessible.

Now I know where all the Court Jesters of olden times are---they're either 
working for Acer, or working for Microsoft gleefully writing error and stop 
messages!

Maybe ought to just retire to the beach.

Don Penlington





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