Tablet Freeze

I just had to do a complete factory reset on my Acer A500 tablet.  Now everything has been wiped, so I have lost everything that I had saved to the device. All my apps and the levels that I have achieved are gone. Everything like kindle and email all needs to be set up again, complete with password protection.

How did it come to this?

It was a perfectly normal day, we were heading down to Urunga for our sailing lesson, Steve was driving and I was playing Pet Rescue Saga.  We got to the river and I turned off the tablet and stowed it under the seat. I thought nothing more of it until a little later in the day when Ellie needed a feed.  I knew that she was due for a sleep and would likely nod off in my arms during the feed.  I mentally congratulated myself on having the fore thought to bring the tablet along as entertainment.

As Ellie dropped off to sleep I carefully reached down and searched the under seat area with my finger tips.  Gently, so as to not wake my baby, I extracted the tablet and switched it on. But it wouldn't switch on. Weird, I was sure that I hadn't shut it down completely when I last switched it off.  I turned it off and then back on again. It started to boot, giving me the Acer name and then android, and that's where it stopped. I waited and waited and it couldn't pass that point.  I tried a few more times to switch it off and back on again.  It was the same thing each time.

I wasn't too worried, the tablet has frozen on me in the past and I have simply hit the reset button with a needle.  It was a tad disappointing as I had just lost my entertainment for the time I was sitting with a sleeping baby in my lap.  Quietly, so as to not wake her I searched the various cavities of the car looking for something I could use to push the reset button.  I tried a variety of pens, but they were just a little too thick to make it into the hole.  Just as I gave up finding anything, Steve told me about a needle in the glove box.  I got it out and used it to push the button.  It had the same effect as the on off button, still when it booted it got stuck at the android screen.  I tried a couple more times and turned in off and on again  a few more times too. No luck.

Still feeling optimistic I decided that the needle at home that I normally use to reset the tablet would do the trick.  I put the tablet away and left the problem for when I got home.

Once home I immediately tried the reset button. No good. Next I decided to give it a full charge and then try.  Still no good. Now I had to face the fact that my tablet, in all likelihood was buggered. So what is the next logical step?

Yep, you guessed it, visit Dr Google.

I Googled the problem as a question and immediately enough forum posts came up in the search results to show me that this a very common problem.  Acer has itself some very unhappy customers out there.  This was not filling me with confidence at all.  Many of the answers involved downloading things that made absolutely no sense to me onto a memory card. I was starting to think I was either going to have to ditch the tablet or send it back to Acer for a very expensive fix.

After reading a few posts I started to understand one thing that was making a reappearance.  That was about how you could turn the power button on at the same time as holding down the volume up button and then toggle the rotation lock button a few times.  this would reset the tablet to its factory settings.  Unfortunately, most had tried it in vain, even the guy in this you tube video.

At least by watching the video I was able to see exactly how it was done.  I am definitely a visual person.  Not expecting too much in the way of results, I followed the instructions in the video.  The first and second times it didn't seem to work.  I continued to peruse the forums and was about to try the factory reset method one last time, when the screen suddenly changed on me and went to the set language.  Yay, it worked.

Now I just need to get on and set everything back up the way I had it before...........