HELP My laptop = HELLEN KELLER

So as i was trying to do a clean install of my acer travelmate 4400 with the acer provided CDs, and my computer just turned off without warning as my hard drive was being reformatted. Now i have no OS and a laptop that just randomly turns off 1-10 minutes after starting it up.

This might be an overheating issue, but i've never had any before. All i can think of is that since all i have left is the BIOS maybe its heat threshold is much lower than when i used to run XP. I've run it without the battery and still get the same results.

So now what? im left with a computer that cant successfully install an OS because it shuts off whenever it feels like it during the install.

Is there any way to bypass this failsafe of shutting off due to overheating if i dont have an OS?

Can i somehow install a different BIOS with different shut off thresholds?

Im just absolutley stumped, i just cant reach it... hence the hellen keller analogy. I would appreciate any help.

Any ideas?

 

wait what..........you tried to format but it didnt get all the way through, so now you try and force an install?

why not just reformat?

 

The reformating was part of the install. With the acer system disk it asks you if you want "HARD DISK FULLY RECOVERED" (which oddly enough means reformat everything) i clicked ok, then it asks to insert system restore disk 1. which i do. Then it starts to reformat the partitions and thats when it shuts off.

and how else could i reformat? can i even get into dos? i dont have on OS

 

you shouldn't need an OS to reformat the hard drive. you can probably just insert your windows CD and choose 'format hard drive' option. about it randomly shutting off though I have no idea...

 

Thats the thing, i basically am reformating with the OS disks and it keeps shutting off.

 

is you laptop stock config ?

 

Yes its stock config. I've never added RAM or anything like that before. I was also wondering would it be possible to try an Ubuntu install disk? it would probably just be the same thing all over again though...

 

If you think it is a heating issues then I would do some research on that that model and see if others have the same issues (the search is a great tool). If you still believe it is overheating replace the thermal compound on the pc.