DarrenKitchen.net

Knoppix ate my BIOS

I’m loving the Acer Aspire One but I just had a strange experience with it. On my way to Phreaknic I accidentally borked the BIOS to the point that the machine would light up the LEDs and turn on the fan but nothing else.

I was in the car working on my presentation off a USB key that I had just recently also used to demo Cluster Knoppix on the show. I left it unattended for a bit and when I came back Windows had done the annoying forced reboot for a patch. So I open up the netbook and see that it’s booting off the USB key, about half way into Cluster Knoppix at that point. No biggie, I simply held down the power button for a few seconds to turn it off, removed the USB key, and pressed the power button again. Then I got nothing.

After trying a ton of little tricks like unplugging the AC power while holding the power button, or pressing the power button while holding different key combos, I was ready to make arrangements for the Aspire One’s funeral. Thankfully I had my eee PC 701 with me as a backup so I continued working on my presentation with that. (Powerpoint at 800×480 is a pain).

Then later at Phreaknic I noticed a blue Acer Aspire One with a Hak5 sticker on it just like mine. In fact, if I didn’t know any better I’d think someone snagged it from my bag and set it down on the table before me.

Well it turns out the netbook belonged to Operat0r. I shared my misery with him and he suggested flashing the bios as he had recently done. And it just so happened that he had a USB key on hand with the latest Acer Aspire One bios. Sweet! So a few moments and keystrokes later — all while holding my breath and crossing my fingers — the little blue netbook that could came back to life. I gave him a man hug only slightly freaking him out. No longer would it be a $400 paperweight!

So it turns out Knoppix can eat an Aspire’s BIOS if shutdown mid boot. Who knew? Thanks Operat0r. Thank you thank you thank you.