My employer recently purchased some new (refurbished) computers. Among them was an Acer Aspire M1641. My goal was to swap out the very large hard drive with a smaller one. So in order to format the new drive, I grabbed my trusty Linux Boot CDs. No go. They refused to boot into a usable state. So I tried my Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (UBCD4Win). This time all I could get was BSOD saying there are problems with my hard drive. I knew this was not true as it was brand new. As a last ditch, I snagged Puppy Linux, which is a great, very quick, liveCD operating system. On standard boot, I again got a stubborn "Failed to Boot" message. I was now prepared to send the system back to the retailers.
My solution came from dumb luck with the Puppy CD. I chose "puppy acpi=off" option at boot. I have used this command when running Puppy in a Virtual Machine with success. It now booted without any problems. I was able to run GParted off the Puppy CD. Now I won't have to have Acer nightmares over my Thanksgiving nap.
 |
