Help, this thing is totally f****d up.

So I have an Acer Aspire One ZG5, which worked fine last year. My mom was using it, then mentioned it wasn't working. I took a look at it. I booted up into Xp, but then nothing worked. No trackpad or keyboard input would do anything. So I plugged in an external mouse, that worked fine, but the keyboard was still not working. I rebooted, and went into the Bios. Keyboard works fine there. So I tried recovering. Restarted, hit ALT+ F10. No dice, says it is loading recovery software, then the Xp booting logo comes up, and it hangs. All day (I let it run).

So then, I download Unbuntu Netbook Remix, install that onto a USB drive, and hope to boot from that, and install linux since nothing is working. I changed the boot order to put the USB stick ahead of the hard drive. I get the options on the "install' screen, and no matter what i select, it fucks up and dies. Just like, instantly. I will click any of the options "run from USB stick, install to HD, etc", no matter WHAT I click, and it starts to look like it's going to do something, then just shuts down violently.

WTF.

If I can't get help for this I'm literally going to smash this thing into a thousand pieces and drive over it with my car just out of spite. I've already wasted 3 hours fucking with this pile of dung. Is there a way to do a simple hardware test? Any ideas on what could be wrong?

 

EEK! hope you get it sorted!

I found on more than one occasion that failure of an Ubuntu intstallation was from bad ISO burns. Success was much better if I burned the ISO with very slow speed. Not sure how you created the files on your usb key - but this might get you further.

If you were to borrow an xp sp3 CD, you can install initially without an installation key (in case the version you have is not an OEM cd) and then plug the key from the bottom of the unit in after the install. Then, simply go to the Acer website and download drivers specific to the ZG5.

 

But these things don't have optical drives........

 

Ever heard of USB External CD/DVD Drives? >_>

 

Um.... I tried that. I explained that in my original post. I made a bootable USB drive with Netbook Remix on it, and it hangs halfway through the boot process. Did you even bother reading my description????

 

So I tried using boot and nuke, but again, it would start to load, then BAM, violent sudden shut down. I then tried KillDisk, and that WORKED. Totally zero'd out the hard drive. Tried installing Netbook Remix again, and right after it starts booting (after the DOS looking loading part, but only a few seconds after it changes resolutions and shows the graphic), again, BAM, violent instant shut down.

Why would it shut down like this?????? The hard drive can't be the problem, it has literally nothing on it.

 

Maybe try testing the RAM with memtest (available on most bootable linux distros i've used) Otherwise I'm pretty much stumped. If it was a PC I'd try a strip-boot. Remove all un-necessary hardware and see how the thing runs.

Take out the hard drive, take out any extra RAM modules (run on the integrated RAM if any), even unplug and remove the touchpad and keyboard. Use USB alternatives in the meantime. IF this works, try adding the components back one at a time. Leave the hard drive 'till last though.