Ians Ramblings

Tonight I tried to turn on my little Acer Aspire One A150 (put its full name in just to help searchers) netbook and it’s power light came on but other than that it was totally dead, the BIOS failed to display and there was no hard disk activity.

I was really shocked as it has been brilliant so far and is less that 12 months old. My first instinct was just to go and get it’s recipt and get it boxed up to go back.

However while it sat in the naughty corner ready to go back to Acer I discovered this chaps page. http://www.qrpcw.com/2009/01/acer-aspire-one-bios-recovery.html genius!! Not sure how this guy discovered the method especially with the BIOS file rename but it works, she’s now purring away again and working perfectly.

Incase that site is un-available for some reason I will post the instructions here, just with a note that while it worked for me I could not guarantee it will work for everyone. For me the fix was complete in a few minutes and everything was restored.

The AA1 has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, making it possible to flash the BIOS even if the system doesn’t boot anymore. It’s only meant for emergencies and may void your warranty, so use at your own risk. Follow every step carefully!

• First format an USB pen disk with the FAT filesystem – Do this on another PC going to “My Computer” right clicking on your USB pen disk and click format, then choose “FAT” as the file system. Do a full format not a quick one.
• Download the latest BIOS , and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that’s important. Do not remove the USB stick.
• Turn the AA1 off, make sure both battery and AC adapter are connected. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking. Press the power button once. The AA1 will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After a while the power button will stop blinking, and the AA1 will reboot shortly after. Wait patiently.
• The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

If for some reason you made a mistake during the procedure and it doesn’t reboot by itself wait 5 minutes before turning it off, just to be sure that it isn’t still flashing the BIOS.

---

Also while looking into this I discovered how to make a USB pen disk a DOS boot disk, which is NOT REQUIRED for the above but handy.http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm

It’s the last year that the MotoGP will be held at Donnington Park this year, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss seeing it when it is so close to my place.

I decided to go to the qualifying and free practice instead of the main race because I would be able to actually take photos and would also not matter so much if I didn’t know what was going on..

Here are a couple photos I took of Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso.

Unfortunately I had to take all my photos through an annoying wire fence, they seem to have come out ok though, it must be a nightmare for people who don’t have manual focus or a forgiving auto focus. I still some how managed to take around 500 photos though so still sifting for good ones amongst them.

Next time I may have to ask for press accreditation from work to get some really nice pics!
I think it might just be because I had not really been to Donnington Park before but getting any info about the times etc was sparse to say the least.

I had a great day though so hot and sunny might even have a bit of sunburn boo ah well!

Great to see the 250s as well, I believe it is their last year of racing, certainly with two stroke engines, they are deafening hehe.

Well even though it was just qualifying the place was packed, the car park was full of bikes, was just hoping one didn’t tip over otherwise it would have been a very expensive game of dominos..

The results for the day are available here.

More biking, perhaps I am getting a touch obsessed,, getting you say? Well after chatting to a chap who used to work at our place, Pete about his new bike I was in the mood for a ride out myself, and Mark at work invited me over to a Ducati meet up at Donnington park.

After having an unhappy evening last night, and feeling rather down today everything seemed rather different. It seems as if things are all going to change, bit of a new start. Even the weather today, cool and crisp yet sunny just reminded me of when I first started University, that same feeling and weather always makes me feel things are changing and a new start is begining.

I am continuing my spree of classic film watching, after having seen it mentioned in so many other newer films and having seen small clips of it I thought I should watch Nosferatu, the classic German silent horror film.