Laptop does't work

blooeyes

Hi, my daughters laptop stopped working last week. It's a Acer 5050 (think), it goes as far as Windows XP screen then just keeps restarting itself. Had it fixed about 4weeks ago (obviously not!!:rolleyes:) as it kept popping up saying corrupted files and was really slow and had to be restarted during use, i think, as i'm just going on what my daughter told me, anyway like i said it now won't go further than the windows xp screen any ideas anyone? Thanks

Alanstrainor

fresh install of xp sounds like the next step, it's difficult to diagnose a problem specifically but reinstalling xp may sort it. You will lose all your files currently on the laptop though.

blooeyes

Thanks, wouldnt know how to do that though!!! I not very tech!!!

Black_Knight

blooeyes wrote: »

Thanks, wouldnt know how to do that though!!! I not very tech!!!

Backup anything you need first
Grab yourself a Windows XP CD and put it in the drive.
Restart the Laptop.
If it doesnt auto start to the CD, restart again and enter the bios, F2 or one of the F keys does it. It should say which it is on start-up so keep your eyes peeled for it. Change the boot menu and give priority to the CD/DVD drive. Google "booting from CD drive" for a clearer explanation.
Now follow instuctions on the CD to install the new XP, choosing to format the C: drive when asked. This whipe your hard drive and install XP from scratch.

Your drivers may be missing when you reinstall windows so id suggest downloading these from acers site and buring them to a CD before formating. Then when windows is installed, pop in the CD with the drivers on it at install them all.

Hope that helps

blooeyes

Don't know how i back up when it won't go further than windows xp screen? And where do i get a xp cd from, would i have to buy? sorry if i asking stupid questions, i really don't have a clue about this stuff, but i don't want to take it back in to be fixed as i paid 300euro there few weeks ago and obviously was a waste!!! Thanks again for replying

Black_Knight

Woops, my bad. Didnt read that part. Try booting in safe mode. Restart and start tapping F8. It should eventually give an option to boot into safe mode. Copy your stuff (documents or files) you want to keep onto a USB Memory stick.

As for getting a Windows XP CD, you might have one from when you got Windows XP originally, unless it was thrown out. Shops should have it or maybe someone on boards has one to spare....

If you paid 300euro to fix it and they didnt fix it, id bring it back. They didnt do the job. This is assuming that its doing the same thing as before. If so, go back and say your laptops not working again, ye didnt fix it, and kick up a fuss if they talk about charging you.

token56

If it gets to the windows xp screen you should be able to get to the bios menu without having to do a reinstail of XP and you might be able to get into "safe mode". The button to get into bios is normal F2 or F12 or one of the F buttons it should say on the first screen that pops up when the computer starts. However it will be quick. You need to press F2 or whatever the button is at this first screen.

From there you will want to go to the boot menu and boot from safe mode. Each bios menu is different so it is hard to give directions on where to go. If you cant use safe mode then you will have to reinstal XP.

Depending on where you bought the laptop it should have come with a XP reinstal CD. You just put this in and restart and the CD should start. If not put the CD go to Bios menu as explain before and select boot from HDD.

In terms of Backup. This may not be possible without actually taking out the Hard drive and putting it into another laptop or connecting it externally to another laptop which I would not recommend.

Is their anything very important saved on it?

blooeyes

No there isn't anything really important on it, just daughters photo's and like, probably could find again!! Yes i was thinking of telling shop they didnt fix it properly, not really same thing but surely if it was about to breakdown they should've seen that, maybe not!!! Anyway i will try and give everything you all suggested a go and thank you for your help

majiktripp

I'd bring it back to the shop where you got it "repaired". It sounds more like a problem with the hard drive in the laptop with the files corrupting again after only 4 weeks of having it back. What exactly did they do for €300? Did they replace any hardware in the machine or is that all labour cost (<- Hard to believe) ?

fdevine

I had problems with a friends Acer laptop last week. I don't think that any of them (Acers) come with a recovery CD/DVD. There should be a recovery partition on the hard-drive though

Basically what I had to do was;

1. Enter the BIOS setup/menu page by pressing F2 on startup
2. Ensure that 'D2D' recovery is turned to ON in the BIOS setup/menu
3. Ensure that the settings are saved

Then restart the laptop and be ready to press ALT & F10 as soon as you see the post screen (that's the screen that shows the Acer logo).

That should start recovery from the partition on the HDD.

Hope that helps

Overheal

majiktripp wrote: »

I'd bring it back to the shop where you got it "repaired". It sounds more like a problem with the hard drive in the laptop with the files corrupting again after only 4 weeks of having it back. What exactly did they do for €300? Did they replace any hardware in the machine or is that all labour cost (<- Hard to believe) ?

repair shops are extortionists anyway. google 'best buy geek squad' and youll see what i mean.

if you can burn this to a CD please do so: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com will contain all/most of the programs you will need to figure out if the hard drive is broken/do a clean re-install/save your files/etc.

majiktripp

Overheal wrote: »

repair shops are extortionists anyway. .

You'll find I'll disagree with that statement, I work as the main in house technician for an IT company (not PC World, they ARE a bunch of cowboys!!)
I do my very best to serve the customer as best I can, within a reasonable timeframe , usually 24-48 depending on the issue and I'll flat out not BS them, if its a broken screen for example, its not worth fixing (to them anyways,to a person with technical knowledge maybe) but I will always be straight with them. I wish to see what exactly the OP had done for €300 because thats quite a lot of money. I would hardly recommend to a customer to proceed with a repair costing that much unless it was a very high end laptop as the cost of new machines especially with Dell, its just not financially viable to repair laptops etc when they run over €250-€300. /Rant

Overheal

Mmm.. I should be careful with my statement so: a lot of repair services in my experiences have been class-A extortionists. Geek Squad at Best Buy is one. Firedog at circuit city is another. Both are major american companies however. I have one or two personal incidents with a compustore in ennis. To be fair he did his work but it was very sloppy: The drive was reformatted but the old data was saved on a partition \. However, when I cleaned up partition \ I was not privy to the fact that the lazy bastard had used the old driver directory on \ to get it working without bothering to migrate them over.

Here is 2 great articles written by former Firedog employees that let you know the potential hazards you may run into. They are must-reads.

http://consumerist.com/351374/10-confessions-of-a-circuit-city-firedog-technician
http://consumerist.com/374772/11-more-confessions-of-a-circuit-city-firedog-tech

Maj, I dont want to throw you in there, sorry. Just my personal experience.

Black_Knight

Any word from the OP and his broken laptop?
That is what this thread was originally about isnt it?

blooeyes

Hi, have tried a couple of things that were suggested but still no joy, at one point the computer said the os can't be detected. Think i will ring the place that attempted to fix it and tell them what has happened, and see if they will try again for no charge. They had charged me 240e labour 80e for norton (which is now wasted) so 320 i paid. They say the action they carried out was recovery 13gb files, formatted, window installed and updated. Anyway will let you know what they said, Thanks again.

I'm a girl lol

Black_Knight

No OS found sounds like a corrupt Hard drive, could mean getting new hard drive, but if its not a corrupt hard drive and you do get a new one, then thats 50quid or so down the drain.
I have a similar problem with my old Laptop, problems still ongoing but it turns on, its quite tempermental though. I replaced my Ram and Hard drive, kinda worked but id not say it was a success.

Did you ever get any blue screens of death?

Go back to the jokers who "fixed" it anyway and kick some ass. I hope you didnt go to PC world to fix it.

blooeyes

My daughter did say something about a blue screen, but would happen frequently and said that is what wiped her stuff before after she had the blue screen, i never got to see what was written on the blue screen. I will ring them later today and see what they have to say. And no wasn't pc world, a local business in town

Overheal

faulty hard drive to blame. easily done for a laptop, if it was ever dropped or struck by anything.