[Manda_S]

I have an Acer aspire 5610z. A few months ago I was using it and everything was working fine. One night after shutting it down it just stopped loading all together.
When it powers on it goes directly to a black screen that says:
A DISK READ ERROR HAS OCCURED
PRESS CTRL+ALT+DELETE TO RESTART
This just does the same thing. I have tried to run a system restore to factory settings, it gets about half way through then a blue screen comes up with an error message that says windows has failed and must be shut down to prevent damage to the computer or something to that effect.
I have tried to get into BIOS to access safe mode and see if that works, but It asks for a SETUP PASSWORD which I never set and I have no idea what it is.
The computer did not come with a copy of windows to reinstall and it literally wont do anything at all. It goes from the windows screen to the black screen almost immediately.
I am totally out of knowledge for this problem. Is there anything that can be done or should I just pitch it?

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It looks like you may have hard drive issue.

Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 (or http://www.bleepingc...ive diagnostic)
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

[Broni]

It looks like you may have hard drive issue.

Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 (or http://www.bleepingc...ive diagnostic)
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.