Acer 5100 Restore Failure Oxa0000002

Good evening. I am having a heck of a time with my Acer Aspire 5100 Vista driven notebook.
Here is the story: PC started running slow, then started to get system failure BSODs. Unplug the PC of all external drives and such, let sit for 30 minutes and it would work fine for a few days, then all would repeat.
So, I made a system restore point, and burned a system recovery DVD. I then tried to do a clean install of Vista Home Premium.

Ok, so here's the deal. It was installed onto D drive. Dont know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

But it went through the entire install just fine, the new desk top came up, everything looked great for about a minute. Then it turned itself off and has yet to run.
I kept getting an error message 'boot failed' and tried to roll back to the restore point [no good, it reset] and the recovery would not load either. Having purchased the notebook from BestBuy I was not given any restore or system discs, so I ordered both a system restore disc and a recovery from Acer, direct. They came in the mail Thursday.
I put the system disc in, and it said it was Loading RAMDISK Image, the progress bar went all the way over and then it asked for the recovery disc.
Inserting the recovery disc, the Restore to Factory Default scrren came up, and it warned that "partitioning C drive would erase all files, etc, and did I want to continue?"
After clicking OK, it proceeded to run down to about 30% completed and then I received the following Failure to Boot, Error Oxa0000002

So then I tried the whole procedure over, and its the same. Again, and again.
So then I called Acer tech, and was told I needed the Acer ISO Image, which I downloaded, unpacked, and burned to CD [using another computer obviously] and it will not even run that CD.

So, here I am, asking for advice...

If anyone can shed some light on what to do it would be SO much appreciated...

Thanks, Will

 

Welcome to NBR.

1. Are you sure the code is 0xa0000002?
2. When you download the ISO from ACER what do you mean by "unpacked" it? If it's a cd image(ISO/BIN) you're supposed to burn the image directly without unpacking it.
3. You need to set your BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM first.

 

It was an archived file. This was the file I downloaded from Acerpanam:

acerpanamDOTcom/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm?recordid=5287&formid=3394&website=AcerPanAm.com&siteid=7117&words=all&keywords=&areaid=2

I had burned the file directly to CD the first time, and tried that before looking at the file type, extracting it with Winarchive, and then burning those files on to CD. It still didnt work, with the same error message, 0xa0000002 [I know I typed the letter O instead of a zero in the subject line and first post]
The files on that ISO CD are:
Boot [folder]
EFI [folder]
Sources [folder]
BOOTMGR [file]
NAPP.DAT [DAT file]
NAPP5.WSI [WSIfile]

BIOS is set to boot from CD first.

 

Ok this is an ISO file. The ISO files are disk image files. You are not supposed to extract nothing from it neither burn the file on a CD. What burning software do you use? Nero? In nero you'll need to run Nero Express then go to "Image projects" then choose "Burn CD from an Image".

Read this.

 

Thanks for your patience, first of all.

Ok, I did as instructed, downloaded the burn program, made the IMAGE CD, and popped it into the drive and rebooted.
A progress bar came up saying Windows Loading Files, and completed all the way. Then an error box that said RYFORMAT Type Mismatch. I clicked the OK button, and the splash screen with a window came up. It reads Acer Disc Formatter, V1-1D and warns to make backup copies, etc. After checking the box stating Yes, I hae made backups, I clicked the ready-to-proceed button NEXT. The RYFORMAT Type Mismatch box comes back up, and won't let me progress past that point.

Please bare with me!

 

Ok I think I've seen this error before...Give me like 15 minutes to look for it.

 

I punched RYFORMAT Type Mismatch into Google, and out of the entire known universe that is the internet there was only one hit returned, and it too was for an Acer Aspire 5100. There was a link at the bottom of that forum entry for a place called freshpcfixDOTcom that says it has a registry cleaner that addresses and corrects that problem, but I ain't touching nothing until I hear from you =)

 

OK maybe it's a hdd problem. Are there any partitions on your drive? Are they formatted? If you don't have any partition you'll have to create at least one and format it. You'll need a Linux Live CD to do that, Knoppix for example. You know how to do that?

Edit: Let me check this registry thing you found out.

Edit2: Checked it and no, this was probably an adware. Reg cleaning is not needed in this case.

 

I know there was a partition for the D drive. I cannot say if they are formatted. They were, but if they still are is a mystery to me. I am not entirely savvy with these things, hence my posting to the forum [I'm a fashion / event photographer, and basically Lightroom and Photoshop are all I use]
I'm going to go to Knoppix now and at least download and burn to disc [if I can do that correctly =) ]

 

You'll have to burn it like you did with the other ISO. As for the partitioning and formatting...If you don't know what you're doing maybe you're better off calling someone to help you. It's very difficult to guide you remotely without seeing what's happening..

 

Before you go any further - have you tried Alt + F10 yet, when you get the boot screen where you'd normally press F2 for BIOS access? Alt + F10 should get you to the restore partition on this lappy, and you can restore the factory image from there.

 

Wow yeah I can't believe I forgot to ask you this! Yeah you should definitely try the Alt+F10 combo on startup....stupid me..

 

I'll see if I can find someone. But what do I tell them that I am trying to do? I dont want to give them some disinformation and further compound things.

What size partitions and what formatting on what drives? Its a 60GB drive to begin with...

 

ALT = F10 didnt seem to do anything. I think there is a partition missing or something. The cursor on the screen, it just sits there and blinks blinks blinks. The hard drive indicator light doesnt flash or anything...

 

You don't need help for this; just turn the laptop on, then when you get the Acer startup screen press Alt + F10. If the recovery partition is intact, the utility that starts is self-prompting. Just choose the option for restoring your system install, press Enter and follow directions.

Make sure you do this immediately at the start screen.

P.S. - Slow down your posting!

 

Alt + F10 just gives me a blinking cursor, top left. No options, no nothing but that cursor. I've rebooted six times, pressing Alt + F10 during the start screen [where it asks if I want to press F2] and... I think the partition is gone...

 

Hmm check if D2D is enabled in BIOS. Press F2 during startup and check if "D2D Recovery" is enabled. If it's not enable it then try with alt+f10 again.

 

Yes, D2D is enabled

BIOS version V2.70
F12 Boot Menu: Enabled
D2D Recovery: Enabled

Boot sequence is:
1. IDE 0: Pioneer DVD-RW
2. SATA : ST-98823AS [S-1]
3: PCI BEV: Realtek Boot Agent
4. USB FDD

Still downloading the Linux....

I'm not trying to post fast, I'm just sitting here editing photos on one machine and trying to fix another... Sorry if it seems like I'm spamming or trying to use this as a live help section. Its my wife's laptop and I just need it to work. I dont know what happened to it, but sheesh.... =)

 

Ok as I said in my previous post you'll need to format your C: and D: (or whatever partitions you have created) to NTFS using the Knoppix CD. Found more confirmations about that in this old thread.
Again if you don't know how to do it yourself you better ask someone to help you. How big is this Knoppix CD anyway? I knew I had to give you a link for GParted..only 100gb..

 

UTorrent says its 4.1 gb, and I am at 95% [cable]

A friend of mine who runs Ubuntu on everything, and is up on all things Linux, will probably help.
Which is a really weird coincidence because I just shot an event [Thursday] where Bob Young, one of the co-creators of RedHat and current Lulu.com's CEO, was a guest speaker =)

 

4GB??! Oh boy I had to tell you about that GParted thing before...what is the matter with me today?

 

Ok just to clarify before I go to sleep(it's almost 3am here).

You'll need to repartition your drive by deleting all partitions then create new one(C or (if you want to) two(C: and D . Make sure your C: is at least 20GB. When you've created the partition(s) you'll have to format them to NTFS.
When all this is done you won't need Knoppix anymore so startup your computer with the ACER CD and try to proceed with the recovery process. I'll check this thread tomorrow, see how it went, please let me know.

If you want to give it a try yourself with all that partitioning and can't deal with Knoppix, download GParted it should be easier. Get the ISO.