I recently purchased an Asus Aspire One NAV50 (532h-2789), I wanted to use it for writing, but found it a bit too small for that task. It sat around for a few weeks while I figured out what to do with it… and figure out I did. Turn it into a gaming emulation machine running Ubuntu 12.04, DosBOX, and ScummVM.

To peak the netbook’s performance, I upgraded the RAM to the (max) 2 gigs, and also upgraded the manufacturer’s 160 gig HD to a OCZ Vertex II SSD (SATA II & 120 GB). A video outline the details concerning this simple upgrade can be found at the bottom of this posting.

Everything worked fine until my first, or second reboot. Upon rebooting, I received:

Error: out of disk.
grub rescue>

So, like any good computer tech, pressed (ALT + CTRL + DEL). Upon my second reboot, I received:

Read Error.

I call this progress, so once again, I issued an (ALT+CTRL+DELETE). Wouldn’t you know, on the 3rd try, Ubuntu 12.04 booted.

After searching the web, I found no posts offering a solution, so I began tinkering. Wouldn’t you know, I found a very simple solution. Open a terminal, and issue the following:

sudo apt-get install dmraid

That’s it. FYI, after a system update, I seem to have to reinstall dmraid, or I get the aforementioned problems again. I haven’t yet figured out why…

I see posts all over the net telling people to run fdisk or return the disk DOA. That’s nonsense.

I made this video to explain how to upgrade a Acer Aspire netbook’s hard-drive. It’s a bit basic, but my intent is to help all people with their computer woes, not just the nerds.