[ale] beware warranties on refurbished/reconditioned computers

[Preston Boyington]

Brian MacLeod wrote:
<SNIPPED>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Richard Bronosky <Richard at bronosky.com
> <mailto:Richard at bronosky.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Six months ago my dad bought a "reconditioned" Acer Aspire A150 from
>     Tiger Direct... I talked him through flashing the BIOS (which
>     tech support also tried to talk him through, but failed to tell him to
>     rename the firmware image to ZG5IA32.FD, so it failed)...


> Yeah, this is the one bad aspect of the Acer Aspire Ones -- I seem to
> have it happen when I leave a USB drive plugged it during a hard power
> down.  For some reason, it causes the BIOS to freak.  Fortunately, I
> know this and have on my stash of USB drives the newest firmware set up
> to do the flash required to get it out of its funk.  Inconvenient, but
> relatively easy to recover from.
> 

I hadn't heard of this and fortunately haven't had that problem.  That
would SUCK to be on a trip and have to do this.

I suppose I will need to set up a USB drive in case this were to happen
to me.

Any caveats I should be forewarned about?

-- 

Arrant Drivel - really, it's just trash...
http://www.arrantdrivel.com/

Where the road takes me - a highwayman's perspective
http://www.prestonboyington.com/