Acer Iconia Tab A510 hard reset guide – back to factory settings

Today we’re going to show you how to hard reset the Acer Iconia Tab A510, a rather high-end tablet launched by Acer in April 2012.  This is basically a 10-inch tablet with full phone specifications, including 3G. It comes with a screen of 10.1 inches, multi-touch, an internal memory of 16GB/32GB, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the OS. This model also joins to the short list of tablets packing NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor, right nearside the A511.

Acer has made a significant change to the stock experience, bundling in its Touch Ring overlay. This is working rather well- when unlocking the device, a ring with four application shortcuts appears; slide your finger towards a particular app and you will go straight to it from the lock screen. It also allows the use of a microSD memory card, up to 32GB. Even if the touchscreen is a responsive one, it is recommended to keep a cleaning cloth at hand because, like most glossy screens, the A510 is prone to picking up fingerprints.

Performing a hard reset procedure on the Iconia Tab A510 is recommended when the tablet is running slow or when the system encountered some vicious bugs. Because this process will bring the slate back to a factory state,  all data currently present in the internal memory will be lost, so doing a back-up to save all important files is highly recommended.

How to Hard Reset the Iconia Tab A510

Before jumping into instructions, you must know that for minor faults or slower performance outputs a soft reset procedure might fix the issue.The best thing about this method is that there’s no data loss after the procedure. You will need a small object similar with a needle or a paperclip to press the reset button, located just bellow the speakers (see the picture below) . If it was only a random error, the device should start as if nothing happened.

Hard Reset Instructions

If you want to fix critical faults, sell your tablet as brand new and prevent data theft, the most straight-forward option is bringing your A510 back to the factory settings. You can do this by following the next steps :

1. Tap the “Home” button.
2. From the Applications menu, navigate to Settings.
3. Now, from the Backup&Reset menu, choose “Factory Data Reset.”
4. In order to erase the entire memory of the tablet, choose “reset tablet” and “Erase everything” options.
5. In this process will lose only the data saved in the internal memory of the tablet, so if you want to clear everything, make sure to also choose the “erase card” option.

As you might have noticed, the instructions listed above require a working device, so if the Iconia Tab A510 is unresponsive you can do the followings:

1. Turn the tablet OFF. If the Power button is not working, remove the battery and plug-it in again.
2. Press and hold the Volume p button simultaneously with the Power button, until the “Android system recovery” menu appears.
3. Use the Volume buttons to scroll up and down and the Camera button to select. Now scroll down and choose the “wipe data/factory reset” option and confirm your selection.
4. After the “data wipe complete”  message appears, choose “reboot system now” and the device will be in its initial state shortly.