AS7720 Start Up - No Windows Display

Greenie Needs help! My son in the military says that when he starts up his laptop Aspire 7720 the "Windows" screen does not display. (He has Windows Vista). There is a "Windows error" message. Can anyone help? I'm just going relay this message to him by phone since he has no internet access now that his laptop is down. Appreciate the help!

 

Hate to say, but that error message is the key to the problem - it will narrow down the possibilities as to what is causing the specific problem.

Overheating is the usual issue in the field, especially in hot conditions. Usually in normal homes you need to blow out the dust at least once a month, but most users don't even bother with that. In the field when you're moving a lot, there isn't time for much maintenance, and what you do maintain is your weapons and survival gear, not your notebook, unless it's for tactical use. I'm guessing this isn't for tac use....

If Windows won't boot at all, but the screen displays the startup/boot information, then there's likely an issue with either the Windows install (corrupt files) or the drive itself. The most likely indicator of this is any obvious sounds coming from the drive (buzzing, clicking, etc. when being accessed).

If the drive is damaged, the data can be recovered (see the DriveSavers link in my sig) but it depends on how much he screws with it trying to fix it as to how much data can be successfully recovered. There are programs you can boot from DVD and recover files from an HD to an external, but you need the experience necessary to do so. If he's having trouble with this kind of error I'd submit he probably doesn't have that kind of knowledge.

Unfortunately, without a lot more information, anything is just a guess at best as there are dozens of things that can cause the symptoms he's reported. Anytime you deal with something like this, always get the complete model number, product # from the label if any, as much info as possible about the system configuration, if the problem happened when it was on AC or Battery, if it boots at all (it can boot with a blank screen), etc.

Some systems do have what are known as LED Error codes - while it might seem like nothing to the casual observer/user, system LED operation is very important. For example, the Power LED tells you that the AC adapter is working properly. When a system has a problem and the screen is blank, some LED's will blink - it's important to note which ones blink and what the pattern is, as they indicate specific problems. Some BIOS also have Beep codes - specific beep patterns when the system is trying to boot which tell the tech where the problem lies.