Also, you may be interested in this post if
* BIOS does not recognise your card
* your card does not boot or does not appear as a device with bootable sector in a partition editor.
* You've been at this for hours, your brain is pulp, you despise this temperamental little beast of a machine and you're desperate for something, ANYTHING, that might help.
I originally wrote a long(er) post, and it was boring(er), so I've summarised like so:
:!: Don't go for the Zif-CF Adapter mod unless you already have the Aspire One AND a CF card. If you have the adapter but not a card, cut your losses and think up other options. If this will be your first attempt at modding a computer DEFINITELY DON'T! This would be the best way never to want to pick up another machine and a screwdriver ever again. Start with something easier and more tolerant... like a home-built nuclear reactor for example.
My setup:
Acer Aspire One A110, 1GB RAM. Originally 16GB SSD.
I am successfully booting Ubuntu netbook remixes (installed from an Ubuntu live-image mounted off a USB stick) on two cards:
- HAMA 32GB 233x
- SanDisk Extreme IV 16GB 400x
Physically, I am using a 10cm flip cable, one end thick with a blue tab, the other thin without a blue tab. I bought a packet of 5 from some dude in Hong Kong. I attached the thin end to the motherboard, but made the fit tight by peeling off another cable's blue tab and holding it in place to match the way it is at the other end of the cable, which is unmodded and attached to the zif-cf adapter. I also used the anthracite filter thingy. I also just made this sound easy, but the reality is that I tried this a thousand times, in a thousand ways, I nearly killed a number of living things, and I'm sure that anyone who saw me in the deepest throes of my hatred for this temperamental piece of crap will never quite forget that I am most definitely capable of losing my temper... badly. I advise patience - hypocritically - and stubborness; don't let the little shite beat you!
Little facts and useful stuff
CF cards can definitely be up to 32GB using linux and GRUB boot
SanDisk Extreme IV cards (a non-'Fixed Disk' card) CAN be booted from with linux's GRUB boot loader
Don't trust the Bios's main information screen. Check the device listings under the 'boot' tab. My working setups show 'HDD: none' in the main bios screen but lists the card under the bios 'boot' tab.
If your setup doesn't work but *should*, undo the physical setup and try it again. Especially the cable! For example, swap which end of the cable goes into the motherboard. I must have tried it literally dozens of combinations multiple times each. :!: I cannot stress enough how much you need to check and retry the physical connections. In the end I am convinced this was my main problem (and I was at this for days!). Zif adapters are just crap.
Don't believe anything you read on any forum about something working or not working until you've tried it yourself again and again and with every other configuration. Try literally every combination, many times. It's lame that this is true, but it often won't work the first time
Keep heart, and keep trying.
Don't think you can buy your way out of whatever problem you have encountered. You'll just have the same goddamn problem with the next expensive card or cable or whatever. (Of course, in the end, you might actually have a faulty card... see the previous paragraph).
:!: Again, don't do this MOD unless you've already started or REALLY enjoy hours of frustration and head-wall interactions of a banging nature. Buy a direct swap SSD HD specifically made for the Aspire One that's been confirmed to work for the setup you're trying to achieve. Or, if you're a noob and you've not understood anything in any post so far, sod it and just buy a Mac.
Good luck.
