Help Needed For a Huge Problem With My Acer Aspire 5100

For a while it died every hour or so but now it's gotten to teh point where it won't start up.

It goes through the acer loading screen to the window loading screen to the option for a scandisk, whether I say yes or no it flashes a blue screen at me which is too quick for me to read and restarts itself, going through the same process.

i want to do a factory restore. Acer told me all I have to do is keep pressing alt+F10 as it loads but this doesn't work. I checked the computer setup and the D2D option for Alt+F10 is enabled.

What do i do??

Thanks alot!

 

do you have the recovery DVDs ?

you have to hit the Alt+F10 before the splash screen.
if you have the dvds set boot from dvd first. F2 at the splash screen.

but it sounds like a heat issue first.or you have had a virus.

 

Try to snap a picture of the screen with a camera if you can... If not- try different buttons like F1 > F12.

If you have recov. CD's, then put it in before turning on and then try an "F" key to get to the boot menu and then select the disk. That should work.

 

I've been hitting it as soon as I let go of the power button, still no luck.
If it was a heat issue/virus, would restoring it help?

Unfortunately I don't have the DVD's, but Acer told me the laptop has the ability to restore itself.

When you say trying the different buttons, do you mean + Alt?

 

Hmm Alt+F10 should work.... Did you change the version of windows that came with your notebook to another version. For instance did you change from vista that should have come pre-installed and went back to XP? If so Alt+F10 will not work anymore.

However if that is not the case then it will work as long as disk-2-disk recovery is enabled in the BIOS. I know that when I used Alt+F10 you would have to press it very quickly a couple of times at the POST screen for it to work, try that and see if it catches the recovery console.

 

ive heard or read on the net that if you change the file system from FAT32 to NTFS. this could stop the D2D working.

 

Nope the file system has nothing to do with D2D. I know this because whenever I used the recovery partition it would make the C partition fat32 and I always converted it to NTFS, then when I went to re-install windows D2D recovery would always work. Remember it wipes all the data off the C partition and places the factory image back onto the partition so what was there before would be gone anyway.

 

Hey Evolution: You are officially invited to join the Acer team. We all know that your advise is always spot on. And you deserve recognition for your wisdom in helping instead of just chasing Noobs or other ignorant people away. We want this forum to be a definitive source of information on the web for Acer

And we would appreciate it if you join the team. We need you on board.

Cheers buddy,
Theo

 

mm actually the Laptop came with Xp and I've kept it running that. So will Alt+F10 not work? Although in the Setup Menu it says that this is enabled.

My computer keeps looping a PXE Media Test Failure message right away now, will Alt+F10 still work?

Thanks for the help so far!

 

Also once the Acer loading screen comes on can I stop pressing Alt F10?
If I keep pressing it it goes to a blank balck page with an underscore and then everntually starts beeping everytime I keep pressing it, then once I stop pressing it only then does it go beyond that screen.

I HATE THIS!

 

Did it also say something like "check cable" after the PXE error? If so go into the BIOS(press F2 at the screen that says acer) and change the boot order. The "media test failure" thing basically means that it didn't detect a network cable plugged in, and it timed out after those few seconds.

AFAIK that error happens if you have set the network card to be the number 1 boot device and not the hard drive or optical drive. Go into the BIOS and change the first device to be hard drive and number 2 to be the optical drive (or vice versa) and then save the configuration and exit. Then try Alt+F10 again. I usually press it a few times (till it beeps), I do that to make sure that I catch the recovery console and that it doesn't boot pass it but you only really need to do it once at the right time.

If your notebook came with XP and you didn't remove it then Acer's MBR and the recovery partition would still be intact.

 

Alright I finally got to the restore menu!
I was running it but then I got a message saying:

restore failed! reason:0xf0000006

 

Then I hit OK to restart and I get a message saying:

NTLDR is missing press any key to restart.
Restarting doesn't help the messge keeps comign up.

But if I shut off the power and turn it back on again the message is gone.

Terrible life I lead

 

Actually now the NTLDR message keeps coming up, and I can't get to the restore menu. Can anyone please help?

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Do you have the option to boot to the recovery console you might be able to repiar windows
2. I know this might be a silly question but have you checked that there is not a cd in the drive that would give you this error
the other option is to download a fix ntldr file from this site http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm

 

Sorry I'm not really sure what you mean?

Apparantly not such a silly question
I'll try and restore WIndows again and see if I get the same error message or if it was the cd causing it.

 

Alright I still get the same error message during the restore: 0xf0000006.
And still ge tthe NTLDR missing message.

Anyone know what to do about the 0xf0000006 message?

 

plase, anyone?