Laptop in needs fixing

Artick89

A friend of mine bought a 2-year old Acer Aspire laptop from me. Last week it broke down and now when you start it, it crashes after about 2 minutes without allowing you to do run any recovery programs. He started the laptop with recovery disk inserted but to no avail.

Please advise us on how to get the laptop up and running again. It is not crucial that the data on the laptop is saved and so we do have the option of formatting the hard disk and reinstalling Windows XP.

Am I correct in saying that we need to stop Windows XP from starting and go into DOS? If so, we don't know how to do this. And when we get into DOS, what do we do - use the command format c:\?

Thanks

Karoma

Define "crash" - is there a blue screen? an error message? any warning? does the laptop feel particularly warm?
Did he definitely format previously, or Repair?
Did he conect to the Internet straight away after formatting?
Are there any peripherals attached?
Any added hardware over time (RAM,etc.)?

Tap F8 to access the menu options. There's no real DOS though. Tes tin Safe Mode.

Artick89

Thanks for your reply.

When you say "Tap F8 to access the menu options", do you mean hold down F8 while the laptop is starting up?

When it crashes, the blue screen of death appears with information that means nothing to me. Then the laptop resarts and crashes again and so on.

The laptop does not feel particularly warm.

My friend has not formatted the laptop. I apologise if I gave that impression.

And in the time that I owned the laptop, I did not format it and there was never a need to repair it.

The only repairs we have tried to carried out is to start the PC with recovery disks - either the recovery disk supplied with the laptop or with the latest version of Norton Internet Security.

A mouse is the only peripheral attached.

No hardware (including RAM) has been added.

The only new software installed since he bought it from me was Norton Internet Security.

5uspect

My girlfriend has an Acer Apire and she experienced issues with it grinding to a halt for no reason (but didn't blue screen) The problem was solved by taking a vacuum cleaner to all the air vents on it to remove any heat sink fouling. Not a bad idea for anyone with a laptop to do now and again anyway!

To enter the boot menu just press F8 (or what ever key acer in particular use) (don't hold it) at the Acer splash screen, boot from the CD drive (you should have your windows inatallation disk in the drive) and follow the instructions.

Artick89

OK, thanks for your replies.

It will be a few weeks before I get a chance to implement your suggestions because my friend lives on the opposite side of the country.

Cheers.