Acer laptop problem .

[Abarbarian]

A friend has asked me to look at their Acer laptop . They think I'm an expert cos I can plug components together and get them to work . Me I'm not going to tell them any different .

The laptop will not go to windows .

I can get into bios by pressing F2 .

A recovery disc is supplied , but when I try to use it it shows the info in my first 3 pics . I don't understand the info given in the pics as the laptop is running a copy of XP HOME . The laptop has not been altered or fiddled with since it was bought , so I'm confused as to why Windows 98 is showing on the screen .

I can get to a position as in pic 3 but don't know what to do . I tried running several commands but the only one that works is "REBOOT" .

I am runnig memtest from a CD , 30 mins so far and no errors .

So it seems as though the memmory works, the CD drive works , some of the HDD is working ( I think ) .

Can anyone offer any sugestions as to what to do . I'd like to recover some of the info on the HDD and don't mind reinstalling XP Home again .

Thanks in advance guys and galls .

 

[Ian]

The BIOS screen showing the HDD details doesn't look quite right - a DOCHIBA, followed by random characters? (last photo). Not sure what that is about, but it seems a bit strange. I guess it should be TOSHIBA followed by some model information. Perhaps the drive is knackered?

I think the windows 98 stuff you are seeing is the onboard recovery partition. The error in pic 2 suggests that it can't access the c: partition at all, perhaps because it can't recognise the NTFS volume, or it could be more evidence that the HDD is gone.

Booting from a Linux CD like Knoppix may be your best bet, as it should let you read the C: if it is accessable and then you can copy files to a USB drive if needed:

http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

 

[Abarbarian]

Thanks Ian I knew this was going to mean loads more info searching and reading

I don't get why Win 98 apears at all as the laptop shipped with XP surely the recovery stuff would be geared towards Xp aswell . Oh well just another example of how geek technos make simple things really complicated .

Could I use PC Linux to recover the files ? I have never used linux before just read up about it and it seems that it is pretty easy for a windows user to operate .

 

[Ian]

I don't know if PC Linux comes as a "live" cd, but if it does then yes Knoppix is easy enough to use, honest It's very much like windows, and all you'll need to do is drag and drop a few things. I know nothing about Linux, but can use it ok

 

[Abarbarian]

Thanks again Ian . I'm maxed out on reasearch so I'll give the Linux route a miss for a while .I'll gte around to it when the weather draws in a bit more .

However I have made progress . I have a 2.5" external drrive caddy that came as part of a job lot . The HDD on the laptop was easy to take out . So I hooked up the caddy and drive to my pc and it showed up . Then I thought , don't know why , that I'd look at the drive with Partition Magic . It showed up there but told me that it had a 116 ERROR and would I like to fix it ( see pic) . This I did .

The Acer HDD is formated in FAT 32 . Seems odd as XP uses NFTS . Must be some reason for it .

put the drive back in the laptop and it looked like it was going to load , different screens etc to before . But it says no operating system could be found .

Question ----

(see pic) can I delete all of the partitions , including the Acer Hidden partition , with Magic . Format the drive to NFTS ( it will be quicker on my pc) . Put the HDD in the laptop and then do a normal install of XP .

 

[Ian]

Yep, what you suggest will work fine - you would lose the restore partition by removing the hidden one though (so maybe worth keeping for only 1.3GB).

If you still want the data and files on the laptop (if you don't copy it over when it's in your PC), you could try doing an install over the top of the old XP.

 

[Abarbarian]

Thanks again Ian .
If I keep the restore partition , would I not have to format the rest of the drive in Fat 32 as the original and would I be able to install XP to these , guess if Acer could do it I could .

Or

Wipe the whole thing . Put C: as 15 Gb and D: as 25 Gb all in NFTS and give the lass a CD with XP Home on it .

Taken copies of everything needed . So might give the installing XP on it as it is a go as it would be informative whatever the outcome .

 

[Abarbarian]

Installing XP on the drive as is did not work at all .

Deleted all partitions and tried to install XP didn't work .

So I reformated the whole thing as NFTS and tried to install XP and got to (see pic 1 ) Fiddled around a bit and got to (see pic 2 ) Still Xp would not install .

Checked out the disk with the Windows XP utility while it was connected to my pc and it shows as being OK .

So where do I go from here ??? Any bright ideas .

 

[Abarbarian]

I'm going to try formating the drive in FAT 32 as that was how it was originaly . Still looking for solutiions and bright ideas though .

 

[Abarbarian]

Well I hooked the HDD to my pc and using Partition Magic I deleted all the partitions .
however when I put the HDD back in the laptop and try to load windows it only shows a disk of 6038mb and I can not get XP to load to it .
So itseems as though Partition Magic may have deleted some stuff but not all the partitions . Any ideas as to how I can wipe the whole HDD clean .
Using the XP cd I can get to use the recovery console , but you have to use DOS commands and I know nothing about them . Can I do anything useful by going down this route .

 

[Abarbarian]

Tried a new HDD and this is the result . Posted this on a laptop specialist forum and couldn't be bothered typing it out again .
Any bright ideas folks ??????

Hi I 'm trying to repair a Aspire 1360 laptop . The original HDD went down , I managed to recover data by hooking it up to my pc . Wiped the HDD clean with Partition Magic or so I thought . Put the HDD back in the laptop and tried to install XP from a genuine cd . Instillation started ok but when it came to the part where XP finds your partitions , it could only find partition "C" unformated but it was only 6038mb in size . Tried to format it but Xp kept saying that the HDD must be bad and would not install . I thought ok the disk is duff try another disk . So I got a disk that was ok and tried to install Xp but the same problem occured . XP could only find a partition 6038mb in size . No mention of any other partitions or anything . Both drives were IDE 40GB in size . So whats the problem and how do I get to install XP on the new disk that is ok . Thanks in advance folks .