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Acer Laptop Start Up Problem

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7 replies

by somemonkey

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Hi,

I have an Acer laptop, about year a half old, which is having some hard drive/start up problems. It starts fine, however following the Microsoft Corporation loading screen all I can see is the mouse. The screens backlights are on but the rest of the screen is black and doesn't change even after waiting for some time. The computer lights are on and removing the battery/charger does nothing.

I'm thinking it's either a hard drive problem or just a software issue, in which case, I could just re-format the drive using (I don't have the install CD's). Since I can see the mouse (and move it), I'm leaning towards a software issue.

Or is their something else I can do to fix the problem? Thanks

7 replies

by oh smeg

Use a Live Linux and boot off the CD, if the unit now works correctly you need to look at the OS Loaded and as this is a fairly recent Acer it most likely has a Recovery Partition which you can recover from. The only down side is that you'll loose all of your Saved Data so you'll first need to Backup all of you Data and you can use the Live Linux for this to either save to a USB Device of some description or burn it to a CD/DVD.

You can either source a Live Linux as a Cover CD on a Linux Mag at your Local Newsagent or download from here

http://www.livecdlist.com/

Col

by balge

hi
can you boot into safe mode? - F8 I think.
Did you make the recovery disks?
try removing all possible peripherals before booting?
cheers

by somemonkey

No, unfortunately, starting in safe mode results in the same outcome. Removing the peripherals doesn't seem like a feasible option since I would have to take apart most of the laptop to do so. It's the same reason as to why I didn't just remove the hard drive and trying connecting it to another computer.

The information on the laptop isn't crucial, and I can afford to lose it. Most of the stuff was backed up pretty recently. I was actually a little more interested as to why just the mouse was showing up and nothing else was. I've seen a few hard drive crashes and usually, they either aren't recognized by the computer or they never make it past the microsoft corporation loading screen. Was the hard drive damaged? Or is it some kind of virus?

Appreciate the replies
Cheers

by balge

hi
I meant peripherals in the sense of being external to the system box....
Stripping laptops is not rocket science in any case. The HDD e.g. will probably be QD
If you want to identify the problem you have to do "troubleshooting"
If you want to test the HDD you might use a disk checking live CD,
to test for viruses one could use an antivirus tool
Etc.
simples ....

by ashily24dee

Hi,

Last Known Configuration is in Windows start up options which uses the most recent system settings.
Start up problems in Acer Veriton might occur due to incorrect loading of the registry.

The use of Last Known Configuration in your system can replace the current registry and can start the operating system with the correct registry.

The most important thing to remember is that you only have one chance to use Last known Configuration.

http://supportforacer.iyogi.com/veriton/wont-start-in-acer-veriton.html

hope this information helps you.

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