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Acer Aspire One ZG5 won't boot up

Last answer on Nov 5, 2009 2:48:37 pm GMT ROBBIE, on May 12, 2009 2:06:33 pm BST

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Hello,
i bought this Acer ASpire One ZG5 in October 2008. Everything worked fine on it until last nite when I tried to start it up and I am only getting a blank screen...no sounds. what can I do to fix this? there are files on the system that I need to retrieve.

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fahd_zboot, on May 12, 2009 3:00:19 pm BST

Hi,

Try the safe mode : Booting Windows XP in Safe Mode then try to restore your computer. Choose a date when the problem didn't exist.

C u ! ►╠◊◊fĀĥĔďŎὫ◊◊╣�;�Appelez�moi�Fahd�;-)

Reply to fahd_zboot

Laxmin, on May 13, 2009 1:03:51 pm BST

+67

Same problem here with me.
My Acer Aspire ZG5 stopped booting up since today morning.

THere is NO POST screen, nor bios, not the Acer logo
WHen I power it up, the power button gets lighted up.
Otherwise, the screen stays blank, black and dark.

THe HDD led shows no activity.

In short, the netbook does not respond nor give any message.

Can anyone please give us some solutions to work with please?

Reply to Laxmin

albayaty, on Jun 13, 2009 7:52:26 am BST

+36

My aspire one ZG5 is not booting bios ,screen is blank can u please help me

Reply to albayaty

bart, on Jul 16, 2009 7:18:37 pm BST

I had the same problem and would like to talk to anyone directly that has had this problem. I am going to investigate this further but would like others assistance. Thank you.

Reply to bart

eoinio2003, on Jul 31, 2009 9:30:40 am BST

Hi my aspire one is doin same as you described. did you get yours sorted or what did you do.
regards owen ireland

Reply to eoinio2003

henry, on Aug 12, 2009 1:14:42 pm BST

I:m having the same problem with my acer zg5

Reply to henry

simei, on Oct 31, 2009 3:10:35 pm GMT

Formate um pendrive em fat baixe a bios do seu netbook mais recente o meu é o netbook acer baspire one zg5,procure no google a bios e o modelo,no caso assim:
bios netbook zg5
ponha noi pendrive o arquivo
FLASHIT to FLASIT.exe and also Rename the Bios name from 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd
deligue o netbook e ponha o pendrive tire o cabo de força e aperte as tecras fn + esc
segure e ligue ,se der certo a luz de power piscara,espere e o pendrive tambem estara piscando ao terminar o processo ele reiniciara e ligara normalmente.

Reply to simei

kenneth, on May 17, 2009 2:41:44 am BST

+23

http://www.acerpanam.com/...

fixed my problem

all you need is a thumb drive

Reply to kenneth

Nowonmai, on May 30, 2009 2:28:42 pm BST

It didn't do a thing. I still get the green power on light, the thumb drive flashes briefly, and then nothing.

Reply to Nowonmai

JD, on Jul 4, 2009 4:26:06 am BST

It did the same thing for me every time I tried untill I did the following, You must relabel the FLASHIT to FLASIT.exe and also Rename the Bios name from 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd.!!!! Then it will work!
Good luck I hope it works for you , It would have been nice if they said to label it FLASIT.exe but they do call it that! I picked up on that which is whay I tried it.

Reply to JD

thunder, on Sep 15, 2009 9:03:17 am BST

TKS MAN IT REALLY WORKED!!!!!

Reply to thunder

joe, on Sep 22, 2009 10:00:13 pm BST

My acer one zg5 when you turn it on the window screen comes up then it goes to the screen to boot it in safe mood. or the last good boot nothing works what do i do

Reply to joe

pete w., on Oct 29, 2009 1:09:40 am GMT

Yo bro, Thx ! ! ! !

Reply to pete w.

AndesHelp, on May 26, 2009 9:40:10 pm BST

I had hoped this would fix my customers problem. However, it does not apply to the Acer Aspire One Series Model ZG5. As a matter of fact, Acer has NO information available for the ZG5, AOA150. Not even a Users Guide.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks

Reply to AndesHelp

Nowonmai, on Jun 13, 2009 10:19:18 am BST

+18

I ended up contacting Acer. They gave me the right Bios and instructions to flash it. It's working now.
Go here:

http://www.acer.com.au/...

Go through the menus, and select the AOA150, then select the BIOS tab. Download the one you need (I used 3309, that was the one attached to the support response) Follow instructions below.

Requirments
256MB USB drive or higher capacity.

1. Insert your USB drive/thumb drive into a working windows system. Open up my computer or computer and locate your usb drive and right click and select format. Format the drive with �FAT� file system and not FAT32 minimum 256 MB in capacity.
2. Download the attached zip file AS1_BIOS_3309.ZIP
3. Extract the files on the root directory of the USB Flash Drive.
4. Turn off the Aspire One and make sure that both power adapter and battery are connected to the netbook.
5. Plug in the USB stick to any port on the failed Aspire One
6. Press and hold Fn+ESC and then press the power button. The power LED will now be blinking.
7. Press the power button ONCE. During this time, it will now initiate the BIOS update, DO NOT INTERRUPT IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
8. After about 2 minutes, the power LED will stop blinking and the Aspire One will reboot. The BIOS is now complete.
9. IF the unit DID NOT REBOOT BY ITSELF, wait a further 5 � 7 minutes before rebooting the unit as the BIOS may still be flashing.

Best of luck. All I know is it worked on mine.

Reply to Nowonmai

mikeF, on Jun 22, 2009 8:06:51 am BST

Nowonmai - When you say press the power button ONCE, do you mean once more?

Reply to mikeF

Nowonmai, on Jun 22, 2009 8:35:50 am BST

When the power LED is blinking (this is after the ESC/FN and pressing power button step), press it ONCE. The the USB stick flash the bios. It will reboot itself when finished.

Cheers!

Reply to Nowonmai

mikeF, on Jun 23, 2009 2:07:58 am BST

Nowonmai - thanks, it worked!

It took longer than expected to do the actual flashing, luckily the person noticed that the USB stick was blinking

Reply to mikeF

Nowonmai, on Jun 24, 2009 3:41:28 am BST

It takes 5 to 7 minutes, and when you're waiting it to finish, it feels like forever. It can take a bit longer, or a bit shorter.

Reply to Nowonmai

hazel, on Jul 16, 2009 2:01:20 pm BST

A youtube link stated in this forum said to rename the 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd but your post didn't say anything about that and your post was the first instruction I saw and followed so I wasn't able to rename the file. My laptop still isn't working after doing the steps you said. Maybe renaming the file was the missing link! but how do i do it? i tried to insert my usb flash to the working OS again but my pc can't read my flash anymore! Please reply!

Reply to hazel

acerhater, on Aug 9, 2009 3:39:37 am BST

Thanks!!! That 3309.zip file worked and your instructions were very, very clear and accurate. Thanks again.

Reply to acerhater

holy2050, on Sep 22, 2009 1:48:10 am BST

Thanks for your experience. It is very useful.
--

Reply to holy2050

vhin, on Sep 23, 2009 6:49:33 am BST

Hi!

can i use zg5_3310?

need ur rply pls...

Reply to vhin

jean, on Oct 16, 2009 6:51:22 am BST

Thank you so much!! It worked for me!!

Reply to jean

Faizan781, on Jul 21, 2009 11:17:06 am BST

Hey Andes,
I have a ZG5 and this process worked on my laptop in just 10 mins
go to this url: http://www.acerpanam.com/...
it's pretty helpful
and do exactly as it says first formatting ur flash.:)
enjoy

Reply to Faizan781

cdm, on Aug 17, 2009 1:29:57 pm BST

It worked for me. i only had to rename 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd.

People who still have this problem,(Acer Aspire One ZG5 won't boot up, working with black screen) this is what i did:

------------------------------------------------------------------
Download & Extract AS1_BIOS_3309.zip (from : http://support.acer.com/...
Rename the Bios name from 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd.
Copy zg5ia32.fd and Flashit.exe to USB flash drive.
Start the restoration process:

A. Plug the AC Adapter into the unit.
B. Insert the USB flash drive into a USB port.
C. Press and Hold down the Fn and the Esc keys together.
D. Keep these keys held down and press power.
E. When the unit's power light comes on release the Fn and Esc keys.
F. After the keys have been released the power light will start to blink.
G. Let the unit run and after approximately 1-7 minutes, the unit should reboot.
H. Video should now be restored
------------------------------------------------------------------------
these information is taken from this aser website:
http://support.acer.com/...
==========================================
i copied all three files: 3309.BAT, zg5ia32.fd , FLASHIT.EXE to root of my USB
you must also format your USB with fat file system (not fat32) with "Allocation unit size" set to "Default allocation size" before coping those three files

Reply to cdm

dbc, on Oct 7, 2009 12:48:47 pm BST

Great job and thanks! I was ready to pitch my Acer, but your info resurrected the machine.

Reply to dbc

sasha, on Oct 16, 2009 9:15:43 pm BST

Thanks!!!!It really worked. I was almost in tears. I didn't have money to replace this system. I wish I could kiss you!

Reply to sasha

Vinny, on Oct 21, 2009 9:50:51 pm BST

Aie buddy i was worried that it was fried, but wan i read your instruction i was confident n tried, now it works gr8 a million thanks 2 u

cheers

Reply to Vinny

Newtownian, on Oct 22, 2009 10:08:52 am BST

Many thanks - the link to the support.acer site gave me the softwater link and it all worked perfectly - the Acer was under warrantee but I'd been told it would take 6 weeks.!!!

Reply to Newtownian

Lipon, on Oct 24, 2009 6:13:08 am BST

Thanks mate. It worked for me as well.
For those who couldn't get it to work, please note this instruction
"Rename the Bios name from 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd.
Copy zg5ia32.fd and Flashit.exe to USB flash drive. "

This helped me out. Because normally when you extract to USB stick, it extracts to a new folder, which is not the root directory.

Reply to Lipon

joe , on Sep 22, 2009 10:21:55 pm BST

Were do i go on that site to do this i went on it and cant find it thanks joe

Reply to joe

jay428, on Jun 21, 2009 3:39:42 pm BST

I tried to do this but still not working, does it mean a hardware failure already?

Reply to jay428

Nowonmai, on Jun 21, 2009 11:24:43 pm BST

I don't think it's a total hardware failure.

There are different bios flash software there. Different ones for different issues. Try each one with the same step by step instructions. One of them should work. If not take the machine into a computer shop, if it's under a year old, it's still under warranty.

Reply to Nowonmai

terry jones, on Jun 22, 2009 3:04:07 am BST

Hi just had the same problem , ive tried the suggested fix, but still no luck :( ...any ideas ?anyone ..im lost without my acer !

Reply to terry jones

terry jones, on Jun 22, 2009 10:26:48 am BST

Im i the only person that this is not working for ahhhhhhh !

Reply to terry jones

cabuguas1, on Jun 23, 2009 5:31:16 am BST

I had the same problem, i used the f-12 ke to reselect the boot drive, save settings and rebooted. worked for me

Reply to cabuguas1

jay 428, on Jun 24, 2009 3:09:36 am BST

Nowonmai ,
"7. Press the power button ONCE. During this time, it will now initiate the BIOS update, DO NOT INTERRUPT IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. "

During this process, is there something on the screen?

mikeF,

How long did it take to flash the Bios on your system?

Reply to jay 428

Nowonmai, on Jun 24, 2009 3:39:44 am BST

The screen is blank during this time. Mine took about 5 minutes total time. It can take a bit longer. Keep an eye on the thumbdrive, if it has a light on it, it will be blinking while it flashes the bios. Then the machine will reboot on its own.

Reply to Nowonmai

nyvillami, on Jun 24, 2009 4:32:58 pm BST

It is not blinking?

Reply to nyvillami

jimmydash, on Sep 3, 2009 10:13:44 pm BST

Mine took about 7 minutes, and the only indication there was anything happening was the light flasing occasinally on the end of the flash drive.

There will be no hard drive sounds or screen flashes or anyting on the machine itself.

MAKE SURE YOU USE THE RIGHT BIOS FILES when you do this.

Reply to jimmydash

yoki, on Jun 25, 2009 2:48:15 am BST

Hi! i have the same problem too! I already downloaded the said bios but iam afraid i will choose the wrong bios for me. they have this warning:

Flashing the wrong BIOS can cause harm to the system. Acer recommends that you should only upgrade your firmware/drivers if you have been instructed to do so by an Acer Customer Care representative. By using these firmware/drivers you agree to accept the possibility of product failure.

so, for my ZG5 netbook.. what do you think is the right one?

Reply to yoki

Nowonmai, on Jun 25, 2009 3:42:14 am BST

That is the standard warning. Each of those Bio versions on the Acer site address different issues. the 3309 is for the blank black screen, unresponsive machine.

Reply to Nowonmai

Dejan, on Jun 28, 2009 12:53:16 am BST

This is the second time I got the Black Screen of Death. The instructions here didn't work for me, but this did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6GRhsvP-og

The difference is essentially to rename the file 3309.fd to zg5ia32.fd and to NOT press the power button again after holding FN+ESC and pressing the power button once.

Reply to Dejan

Brendon, on Jul 8, 2009 11:12:04 am BST

Hi I don't know who you are but thanks for your post it worked after all else failed even Acer were not helpful as the machine was bought in another country. Thanks again.

Reply to Brendon

doll, on Jul 30, 2009 10:32:56 am BST

Thanks for the Youtube link -- those instructions worked better for me than the ACER support page ones

for me the difference was from Youtube vid advising:

Release the power button
and continue holding
FN and ESC for about 5
seconds.

Ah..so nice to be rescued from TBSoD!

:-) doll

Reply to doll

Damage, on Oct 12, 2009 10:49:13 pm BST

To the person with the youtube vid i have been working with computers now for over 10 years and couldnt get the bios to flash untill your vid so thank you u have saved my bacon

Reply to Damage

kordiss, on Jun 28, 2009 8:01:30 am BST

THANK YOU VERY MUCH .. I SOLVED MY PROBLEM THANKS AGAIN......

Reply to kordiss

whatarelief!, on Jul 2, 2009 9:22:43 pm BST

I woke up to find my Aspire One not booting. Thanks for all the tips here, I managed to revive it with the USB flash to BIOS. Used the 3309 version and renamed to zg5ia32.fd and works perfectly. USB flash and reboot took under a minute.

Thanks once again.

Reply to whatarelief!

DD, on Jul 9, 2009 5:49:37 am BST

Guys, many thanks for the tips, it saves me a lot. My Acer One got BSOD just now and I followed your link. It works!!!. I got all my PhD thesis data in my laptop and I have no warranty since I bought it overseas. Thanks, God loves you ...

Reply to DD

dd, on Jul 9, 2009 12:32:25 pm BST

Hello, I have same problem with Laxmin, have tried to use thumb flash, but it also didn't work.
Yeah, only the power button light up but the screen black and dark. Some machine sound from the pc.

Reply to dd

joshr676, on Jul 11, 2009 9:23:25 pm BST

Hi i have the exact same problem power light on and nothing else. can hear the CPU fan and HDD but the screen is blank no light from it. does this mean a new screen cannot get the bios to flash and make pc boot. it worked fine last night now though...!
Any chancw of some help?

Cheers!

Reply to joshr676

Rainbow_Demon, on Jul 12, 2009 7:23:44 pm BST

Just go to the acer website and http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_150.html and d/load the bios update 3309, open the folder and copy two files to a formatted fat usb stick. Rename the file FLASHIT to FLASHIT.EXE and the second file 3309.fd(bios file) to ZG5IA32.FD rename them precisely like that, please check your spelling is correct. Insert the usb stick into the usb left hand side make sure the charger is plugged in . Hold down keys fn+esc and power up the laptop, when the power led begins to blink release the two buttons and press the power button just once, observe the usb stick flashing indicating it's flashing the bios, please note this can take a few attempts, I once struggled for a few hours until I finally tamed the beast :) be patient okay, I would like to point out if you wish to update within winxp use the same bios update 3309 , extract the zipped files to a formatted usb stick and rename the two files again but DO NOT REMOVE or interfere with the other files in the folder , with the laptop up and running open the folder and click on the Insysdeflash file only within the winflash file, this will flash your bios within windows and update it to the latest version, I read that flashing it when using the fn+esc keys merely restores the bios , I have tested this and mine updated to 3309 only when I flashed my bios within windows using the complete d/loaded bios update as mentioned . It will be worth reading the read me file to see what has changed in this bios version, I can tell you that for those out there that have password issues i.e. hdd set, the need to enter password with upper case is not a requirement more and there are a lot more fixes too, enjoy and I hope this bit of info was useful:)

Reply to Rainbow_Demon

AdamUK28, on Jul 30, 2009 7:59:52 am BST

Followed the instructions from Rainbow and my Acer Aspire One A0A 150 is now back up and running. Many thanks :-)

Reply to AdamUK28

CALLMEJULIO, on Oct 17, 2009 2:42:44 am BST

AWESOME DUDE!!!! I though it was toast, but your trick worked like magic...Many tanks.....

Reply to CALLMEJULIO

Mcflywales, on Oct 23, 2009 11:48:22 am BST

You are just brilliant! I tried so many times to get it to work and after reading your post i did exactly what you said and the flashing led on my power button lasted alot longer than it had been and it worked! I am sooooo happy now i cannot live without my laptop i was just glad i read that it took someone else a few attempts to! other wise i was sure i would have given up!

Thanks a bunch! x

I love this page it's helped me with 2 problems within a few weeks with my acer aspire one! x

Reply to Mcflywales

Lenny, on Nov 5, 2009 12:45:02 pm GMT

I saw the step posted for flashing the BIOS everywhere but this is the only place that told me to rename flashit.exe to flasit.exe

That was it! The flash drive light finally lit up after hold fn/esc and powering on the AAO, after about 3 minutes it rebooted normally.

I manage a network for a large school district with over 1000 AAO's so this trick will certainly be a lifesaver for me. You helped a lot of kids with this post, thank you!

Reply to Lenny

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