[Jintan]

A little late in the ballgame, but check if System Restore is available, and Restore back before a time the problems started.

Reboot using the DVD, select System Recovery Options, then select System Restore.

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As expected, no system restore points found. Anyway, I don't remember creating one before.

Edited by kenchew, 19 May 2013 - 01:44 AM.

[kenchew]

As expected, no system restore points found. Anyway, I don't remember creating one before.

Edited by kenchew, 19 May 2013 - 01:44 AM.

[Jintan]

Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.

Press a key when you are prompted.

Click Repair your computer.

Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.

In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

At the prompt type:

chkdsk /r

If it tells you the drive is in use, type "Y" to allow the system to close out all handles to the drive, and run check disk.

Reboot after, hopefully to Windows.

[kenchew]

At the command prompt it was defaulted to x: drive. Tried running checkdisk but it said it was write protected. Then I changed the command prompt drive to c drive by typing "c:" (hope I didn't mess up)

Pressed y when it prompted. Ran checkdisk and it found no errors. Rebooted but still ended up on the screen that prompts me to do a startup repair.

[Jintan]

I should have mentioned checking the drive letters before running check disk. Acer's typically have an extra partition or two, so what is the C drive in the Recovery Environment may not be what you think.

Return to the Recovery Environment, and check that please. For example, enter at the prompt (hitting Enter after each):

c:

dir

The "dir" command will show the folders in that "C" partition. If it is the true "C", it should have a Users folder, and a Windows folder. If it doesn't, try E: etc.

[kenchew]

True enough. C: didn't contain the windows folder. But on my attempt to change the drive to e:, it states "the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error".

[kenchew]

True enough. C: didn't contain the windows folder. But on my attempt to change the drive to e:, it states "the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error".

[Jintan]

Sounds like a failing hard drive.

Reboot, and as the system boots press the Alt key and the F10 key. This should take you to the Recovery Manager. See if you can run the hard drive diagnostics from there.

[kenchew]

Managed to reach Acer eRecovery Management after a few attempts. They only gave one option "completely restore system to factory defaults: Restore your PC to factory default status. All data on C: will be deleted". The other option "Restore Operating System and Retain User Data" was blacked out.

So, do I proceed with the 1st option? Means I've to reinstall all my programs if this succeeds?

[Jintan]

That's of course a last solution, since it will remove all user data. We can develop a handy means of offloading all that though, if needed.


From and eHow link here (don't go there unless you have to - it's a messy ad web page), so questionable how much it actually fits:

the hard drive is to restart the computer and press the "F2" key during startup. Once the setup utility comes up, go to the diagnostic menu and run a test on the hard drive.

The other suggestions were F10 or F12 at bootup.

[kenchew]

Wasn't able to find the diagnostic menu that they were mentioning. Pressing F2 brought me to the bios setup. F12 requested me to choose the boot device.

F10 brought me to Windows Boot Manager where there is a windows memory diagnostic tool (is this the diagnostic tool you were referring to?). Anyway, tried this test and it didn't seem to detect any problems. When it restarted automatically, I returned to the same sceeen that prompt me for a startup repair because windows failed to load.

[Jintan]

The hard drive is usually stored under a panel that shows a symbol of stacked discs. Can you remove that cover, and post back here the brand of drive, so we can create a drive check disk?

[kenchew]

The brand should be western digital. The hdd model is WDC WD5000BEVT-22A0RT0.

[Jintan]

Okay, here. WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows. Download it and burn it to a CD, then boot the problem computer from it. Hopefully the instructions on it are self-explanatory, though there is a .pdf download for those as well. See if you can check the hard drive.

[kenchew]

Burned the files into a cd but it couldn't boot from it. I thentried to execute the file from command prompt but it said that the subsystem needed to support the image type is not present. Wonder if I actually should download the data lifeguard diagnostic for DOS instead?

Edited by kenchew, 24 May 2013 - 10:22 PM.