Not sure what to make of this! (Acer Travelmate 4100 WLMi)

This is my first post, just like to say that this is a very well run and useful site...so well done!

**THE STORY**

Basically I had this laptop (Acer Travelmate 4100 WLMi) at uni for my first and second years (so its about 3 and a half years old now) until it fell off my laptop when i lent forward to get my cup of tea. The faceplate broke but it was still operational. I got the faceplate fixed at the Uni's hardware support but got it home to find that it no longer charged. They accepted no responsibility and told me that it was uneconomical to fix it. As it was insured I didn't mind too much and did what every student who needs a laptop and has a £600 credit note, and bought a 37" Plasma TV.

I left the laptop in the loft for years as nothing happened when I plugged it in to charge, no lights, no sounds, no action, nothing! I've just found it again and plugged it in out of interest and it does charge and now does boot. However

**THE PROBLEM**

It only makes the first boot page until it says

'PXE-E61 Media Test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Existing broadcom PXE ROM
Operating system not found

Does anyone know if this is serious and if I can fix it?

Thanks

 

Probably the HDD is dead. See if the HDD is detected in the BIOS.

 

Cheers, will do that after its had a charge and let you know

Thanks for the quick response

Chris

 

Ok it turns out that the HDD is knackered, I have windows installed on a USB HDD but cannot find out how to boot it from the USB in the bios. If USB is not listed in the boot locations does that mean that I can't boot it from that?

Any help is much appreciated,

Cheers

 

Yes, you cannot boot from it then.