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**FIXED**Acer Aspire 5520 - CD/DVD drive not showing in BIOS - Won't boot from USB

m0pelley99

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Dec 12, 2008
Messages
198
Hi there. I'm having trouble fixing a friend's laptop. It won't boot from the CD/DVD drive, because it's not being detected in the BIOS. Same for a USB flash drive. Won't even read off an external CD/DVD drive.

Is there any way to install Windows 7 from a hard drive partition? The hard drive is the only means of booting from.
 
Last edited:

enaberif

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Dec 9, 2006
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Calgahree, AB
To boot from a hard drive you would essentially have to set it up like installing Windows 7 from a USB drive.
 

KaptCrunch

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Feb 23, 2008
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Location
Ontario
i see bios 1.33 is last update do the update in dos. mite be optical drive has bad connection or turned off in cmos or Dead
 

m0pelley99

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Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Messages
198
To boot from a hard drive you would essentially have to set it up like installing Windows 7 from a USB drive.

Looking at some YouTube videos showing how to do this now.

i see bios 1.33 is last update do the update in dos. mite be optical drive has bad connection or turned off in cmos or Dead

Yup, the CD/DVD drive is in fact dead. Has been for the last couple months with that laptop apparently.
 

m0pelley99

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Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Messages
198
OK. I figured out how to fix this problem. Turns out the CD/DVD drive was not dead, but the motherboard is the issue, not allowing it to be read properly.

This is what I did to fix the problem:
1. Took the hard drive out of the Acer
2. Put the hard drive into a laptop with a working CD/DVD drive
3. Started the Windows 7 install process
4. During the first restart, I turned off the donor laptop and removed the hard drive and placed it back into the Acer
5. Started the Acer laptop and finished the Windows 7 install
6. Installed programs/updates
DONE!

Most times this works perfect, but sometimes the hardware will be very different and cause a bluescreen during the install on the laptop.

I did this method using these two laptops:
Target Acer 5520:
AMD Turion x2 processor
1GB of DDR2
Nvidia 6150m graphics
standard audio and wifi

Donor, Toshiba A100:
Celeron-D 1.73GHz
1GB of DDR2
ATi Xpress 200m
standard audio and wifi

Two different processor, two different chipsets and two different graphics chips...and it worked.

Hope this helps anyone having the same problem as me!
 

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