cheap android netbook not booting

froog

so i bought a really cheap (70 quid) android netbook off amazon. it's chinese. hard to figure out who the maker actually is, i think it's a crowd called EPC.

anyone, it was working fine for an hour until i tried to hook an external hard drive into it. now it won't start and hangs on the android start up screen.

i know you get what you pay for but would be grateful for any advice the techies here might have, returning it seems like it could be a problem. i tried rebooting from a usb, no joy. tried taking battery out, multiple restarts etc etc.

here it is: http://www.1010store.com/products/laptop/EPC%20Mini%20Netbook%207%20inch%20WiFi%20Android%202.2.html

Sup08

There is usually a way of resetting to factory default, so you will need to look at the manual that came with it to see how to perform this.

Sup08

This might help you out.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f132/epc-mini-netbook-7-windows-ce-6-0-a-448352.html

froog

thanks all.

so i was reading up on this last night. these generic chinese laptops are everywhere atm, being sold on ebay and amazon under various different names. beware, lots of problems with them, very cheap build. quite hard to troubleshoot them too, as the insides tend to vary.

i'm gonna try and flash boot it with android tonight. apparently doesn't work with usb, only SD. will report back later.

Khannie

Yeah, flash should sort you. I've had similar troubles with a tablet I got ages ago.

froog

okay all

i finally managed to get it working!

i ended up installing a modded android called uberoid.

it's very simple, just download this file: http://wm8650.net/index.php?newsid=4

and use this tool: http://nanospic.ro/?p=6

hope this helps people cause there's a lot of folk around with wrecked heads trying to fix these

froog

here's a fix for a common problem during installation -

http://www.techknow.t0xic.nl/forum/index.php?topic=2361.0

file 2 worked for me

bonzodog2

On the same forum (techknow) you can also find images of Debian and Angstrom Linux you can boot from a micro SD, without changing the Android/Uberoid installed on the device. A little fiddling was required to get Angstrom working on wifi on mine.

http://www.techknow.t0xic.nl/forum/index.php?topic=208.0

http://www.techknow.t0xic.nl/forum/index.php?topic=1418.0