Acer Aspire 5100...Lots of beeps on stratup and NTLDR missing..HELP plz

My father’s notebook has been acting up for awhile. It beeps continuously at startup. You would have to "F2" to the BIOS then exit the BIOS, then start up screen to come up again, beeps again repeat "F2" back to BIOS, but eventually XP would load. Unfortunately everything was sluggish, keyboard wouldn’t work right. So in my limited computer knowledge I decided to reformat the notebook. I could not find any back up disk that came with the notebook so I created a back up disk from factory settings via the Acer eRecovery Management process. I have ran this recovery disk twice. Both times I have installed the recovery disk I get NTLDR missing as well as the beeps have not gone away. From some online research beeps mean computer is telling us something is wrong with the hardware. Number of beeps tells what specifically; unfortunately I can’t find what continuous beeping means. NTLDR missing I found usually means that the computer is looking in the wrong place for the file.

I have no idea what I should do next to resolve the problem. Should I go out and buy an OME copy of XP Pro. Will friends XP Pro disks work as long as I use the XP Key found on the bottom of my laptop? How can i figure what hardware is causing the notebook to beep?
Ideally what I would like to achieve is a clean install with the most limited amount of Acer bloat ware installed. I am trying to find a list of what programs are needed and what programs are bloatware.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Sorry will only bump once...so no suggestions

 

There are a few programs to do some hardware tests just do a search for ram test and hard drive test and try that it. There are different beep codes for different bios manufacturers I'm not sure if you looked for the proper manufacturer or not but typically it's either the ram or some kind of major system problem like the motherboard.

 

Hmm seems like your hdd is not working right. Tried to check it?

By the way what's the beep like? One long beep every x seconds?

 

Thanks for the reply

It's short repetitive beeps that continuously goes on until I hit F2 to enter BIOS. I found this site that discusses beep codes but doesn’t really help me. The notebook has a Phoenix BOIS.

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/phoenixbeep.htm

Is it possible that the hardware problem is resulting in the NTLDR missing Error?

 

Source: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

Maybe you have some corrupted files which are in your recovery CDs too because as you stated you did the recovery CDs AFTER you got the problems. OR some files were not copied when you did the CDs BECAUSE they were corrupted. You may need a Windows installation disk to do a reformat and clean install.

You can check your hdd with some free tools, for example Ultimate BootCD.

 

Thanks for feed back.

Will any XP Pro disk work with the key on the back of the notebook.

 

Yes, using the the key from the back of your notebook, I believe any WinXP will do. Of course the key must be for XP PRO in order to work with XP Pro CD.

 

Any suggestions on what order I should install the drivers. I saw a list on some forum but I can't find it again.

 

Well, I usually install the chipset first, then audio, graphic, lan, wlan etc..However I've seen some people get audio problem(aspire 5315 but still) so to avoid this eventual problem install the audio first, then the chipset then whatever you want.

 

No, if you are using the key on COA on the back of the notebook, you will need an OEM copy of XP Pro. Retail and OEM disks are different for XP and use different keys. Of course XP home discs won't work either.

 

Really? I thought XP will install using COA with any CD when the type of the key - pro/home - match the type of the XP CD. No personal experience though so I guess you're right.