/ Booting from an External Disk Drive

Booting from an External Disk Drive

There’s one problem with this solution: The Acer Aspire One has no disk drive at all, so it doesn’t matter if you have a copy of Windows on disk. I have one and have been trying to boot from the disk using a USB DVD drive (Memorex DVD+-RAM 530L v1) but it doesn’t seem to want to let the disk boot, even after setting the drive to be first in the BIOS boot sequence; the boot sequence starts, then just goes right to that same error. How do I get it to boot from the DVD drive? Kate Dubensky

Consider Service if Under Warranty

You should be able to connect an external CD or DVD drive through the USB port and boot from the Windows disks that way. Before getting into those details, you might also consider Kat’s original advice and think about taking your machine in for repair if it is still covered by warranty. Sometimes failure to follow boot sequence instructions are also indicative of a larger problem and, compounded with your installation error might mean your computer has a variety of issues. Rather than trying to stick your finger in the dam, a thorough inspection by an Acer technician will ensure that you receive the value of your investment and can enjoy your notebook in the long term.

Configure the BIOS Sequence to Boot from an External Optical Drive

That said, let’s think about how to connect the external DVD drive and get the notebook to boot from it. There are two methods that you can try to get the computer to boot from the external optical drive but first you should remove it from the USB port and let things rest. You might even want to power your computer down to reset things. Put the Windows disk in the disk reader and reconnect it. Power your computer up. Now, you can either:

Press F2 as the computer is booting, as soon as you see the Acer logo on your screen
This should open the BIOS setup
Choose the Boot Menu
Follow the onscreen directions to set the bootable optical disk drive first

Press F12 during boot up, as soon as you see the Acer logo
From the list that appears, choose USB ODD

Now, choose Exit Saving Changes or press F10 or press Enter to close the boot selection menu. You should now be able to follow the onscreen directions to reinstall your operating system or run the Windows Recovery disk.

Create a Bootable USB Recovery Flash Drive

If you have no luck with this, and your computer refuses to boot from the optical drive, you can create a bootable USB drive, but you will need a Windows Recovery disk and a second computer with an optical disk drive.

Put the Recovery disk in the secondary computer’s disk drive
Connect a flash drive - with a minimum 1 GB capacity - into the secondary computer’s USB port
Follow the directions detailed in the previous example to open the BIOS set up in the secondary computer and configure the ODD as the first device
Save the changes and exit the BIOS
Wait while the computer boots - you should see a list of options when it is finished
Choose install2usb
Now, from the list of disk presented, choose the USB drive and click Next
Now you have the Windows Recovery program saved on the flash drive - take it to the Aspire One and try again, this time setting the BIOS to the USB drive and try to repair your system this way

Consult with a Remote Assistant

If you have no luck with these steps, you might want to talk to a remote technical assistant who can troubleshoot with you in real time to help get to the root of the problem and determine an appropriate course of action. At Filetonic we recommend the support services available here. I hope this is helpful, good luck!