Laptop Crash

My laptop hasn't been too great of late. It had some sort of crash about a month ago, after which it went through a long diagnostic thing and removed and repaired whatever it thought necessary. its been ok since, but slow at times. Last night, it froze, and after switching it back on, it failed to load Windows. Tried all night with no luck beyond the welcome screen. Today its gone into the home screen, but its still loading stuff an hour on bye its not looking great. It's an Acer, with Windows 7, pre loaded, and didn't come with a cd for it as I think they partition the harddrive or something.

I would use my netbook to Google and download utilities, but Gods of Geek are against me today and seems the power lead has died. Typical. So typing this on my phone...

I do have some backups, but they are not recent. Bad girl, I know.

I don't want a Mac either.

Sorry for cross-posting this to Facebook too. Just at a bit of a loss.

Originally Posted by LadyB

didn't come with a cd for it as I think they partition the harddrive or something.

Absolutely no help to you now, but see the third option in the list . . . ? That's the option from when you've burned your own back-ups.

However, this will act as a 'boing' to keep it up the new posts list

Ouch. So, you have stuff on the harddisk you want to recover? Ok. If you've got the time, and access to another machine, you can do it yourself....or, you can bring it around to me, bring an external harddrive (or whatever, to store the recovered data). I recon I'd be able to pull whatever files you need. You can then re-install from scratch if you need to, and copy your files back on. Let me know.

A little update and further opinions sought:

Thankfully I have now managed to get the laptop into safe mode and copied my documents and photos over to my external hard drive. So from that point of view, I'm not so bothered what happens.

During backup, I had two warnings that the hard drive was potentially going to fail. I'd not be too surprised if this was what the main problem was, as it's been running hot for a while. So the HDD may be FUBA'd. It's taken it all day to do the backup in Safe Mode.

I now need to consider what to do next. Being an Acer which doesn't come with an OS CD supplied (OS key is on the sticker underneath though). I have got a Recovery CD and Restore Disc that I ordered. I've been crap at making the Acer spesific image CDs. So if I attempt to wipe clean, will I be stuck as I have none of these?

With the Win 7 key code sticker, am I able to get a hard copy with that?

If the HDD is FUBA'd, is there any point to messing around with this at all, throwing money at teeth-sucking service centres and potentially a new HDD? Should I just put my money towards my next laptop and be grateful that I have all my files backed up and had 2.5 years out of this laptop?

Yours numptily,
LadyB

Acer laptops run hot, my last laptop ran very hot and fried my HDD.

Open up the case, remove the fan and clean it all up, an air duster is useful. If you can create the image cd/dvds then do so, I had to rebuild mine and the disks took a few hours to do, however I didn't back up any of the installed software as I had all of the installation files on the server/could download them.

Replacing the HDD is easy, really easy, even a girl ( ) could do it, 6 or so screws, pull out the old, push in the new, replace screws, job done, then reinstall Windows and away you go. HDDs are readily available from eBay or local computer hardware stores (PC World if you have to but go for 'brown box' items) I think my HDD cost £40

I subsequently sold the laptop with a knackered battery for £140, so £100 clear cash after the cost of the drive, certainly more than I would have got for a spares & repairs machine.

HTH

I tried opening up my Acer (with an on-line how-to) and it was way to complex/fiddly for me. It never went back together and that was the end of it. More competent and patient folks might be fine!

I'd try some of those system restore options but if you've lost confidence in it, I wouldn't want to be storing files I wanted on it.

Some of the folks on here were very helpful when my current laptop got a nasty virus thing. I was close to binning that too but it's fine thanks to their help.

Re installing Windows again. What can I do if I don't have the cd, only the key code? Can I get a copy with the code, or will I need a new disc?

Originally Posted by LadyB

Re installing Windows again. What can I do if I don't have the cd, only the key code? Can I get a copy with the code, or will I need a new disc?

Borrow one or download. Im sure someone cas a copy they can burn you. I would offer but have no DVD ROM's.

Originally Posted by 1888

Borrow one or download. Im sure someone cas a copy they can burn you. I would offer but have no DVD ROM's.

What he said.

Remember you'll need the drivers. You can download them from Acer's web site but you'll need internet access to do that so make sure you have at least the LAN driver before you start.

Originally Posted by LadyB

OS key is on the sticker underneath though

Afraid not, that's the COA key and won't be recognised as an activation key when you reinstall Windows. There are programs to extract your key, not sure if you can run them in safe mode or not. Otherwise I expect you'll have to phone MS and explain. I'd do that before trying to get a new serial or applying any crackz.

I would just try to burn off the recovery disks or use Recovery Management to put a fresh install on from the recovery partition.

Originally Posted by fulltilt

Afraid not, that's the COA key and won't be recognised as an activation key when you reinstall Windows. There are programs to extract your key, not sure if you can run them in safe mode or not. Otherwise I expect you'll have to phone MS and explain. I'd do that before trying to get a new serial or applying any crackz.

The one i have does work in safe mode. Funny as i had to use it last night. If you think it any use to you LadyB PM me an e mail address and ill try and send it.

Originally Posted by fulltilt

Afraid not, that's the COA key and won't be recognised as an activation key when you reinstall Windows. There are programs to extract your key, not sure if you can run them in safe mode or not. Otherwise I expect you'll have to phone MS and explain. I'd do that before trying to get a new serial or applying any crackz.

The 25 character code (5 groups of 5) on the COA is the product key. At least that's what I've been entering as a product key for the last six months or so and it's worked.

Originally Posted by saga_lout

The 25 character code (5 groups of 5) on the COA is the product key. At least that's what I've been entering as a product key for the last six months or so and it's worked.

Oh, well maybe it will work then. It's never worked for me and the keys I've extracted have always been different from the code on that label.

At the same time as this happened, the power lead to my netbook died. New one ordered, so hopefully I will have somewhere to download drivers etc from when it gets here. Or go laptop shopping... (Any recommendations?)