Major Laptop Problem - Help Needed!

Last edited by Dangerblade on Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just sent the below email to Acer Customer Support, which details my problem...

Product Model: Acer Aspire 5733
Serial Number/SNID: LXRN5021081470BB331601
Date of Purchase: 01/06/2012
Warranty Contract: Yes

Hello

I am having major issues with my 3 month old Acer Aspire 5733 - Windows 7 will no longer boot up.

I turned on the laptop yesterday and noticed that it was taking a while to boot up. Once I put my password in and got to the desktop, it was working very slowly; the mouse curser would freeze, it would take 10-30 seconds to open a program, folder etc.

I decided to shut down the laptop and turn it back on again, and this is when the main problems began. The laptop spent about 5 mins on the Windows logo screen, and then restarted itself. Upon restart, it took me to a screen prompting me to start a system repair.

I used the fix tool in system repair, which said it was successful, and restarted the laptop. However, upon restart, the same thing happened: it froze for around 5 mins on the Windows logo, and then went back to the prompt to do a system repair. I did this one more time, but this time, system repair was unable to work. It gave me the following message:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 21200127
Problem Signature 05: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 06: 12
Problem Signature 07: CorruptAcl
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

I then went into advanced system repair options, to see if there was anything there I could do. Here are each of the options and what happens when I choose them:

Startup Repair
- Won't work, as detailed above.

System Restore
- I have attempted this with several dates in late August. It says it worked successfully, but Windows will still not boot up.

System Image Recovery
- I don't know what this means.

Windows Memory Diagnostic
- It doesn't find any errors.

Command Prompt
- I have no idea what I can type in, if anything, to help fix the issue.

Recovery Management
- I do not want to do this, because I will lose all my documents/programs/bookmarks etc.

As you can see, nothing seems to be working to fix this. I have done some reading online, and people have said that I need to reboot Windows using the CD that came with the laptop...but I didn't get a CD with the laptop; everything was pre-installed. I have read that the Windows boot problem occurs sometimes when you install new hardware or drivers, or when you remove the hard drive but I have not done any of these things. I have also read that going into safe mode might work, but Windows can't go into safe mode either; again, it just freezes and takes me back to the system repair prompt. I am going around in circles.

I have had no problems whatsoever with the laptop up until this point; it's never been slow, never had a virus and never even frozen. It's never been dropped or damaged in any way.

Please get back to me as a matter of urgency, with how to:

1. Recover my documents/programs/bookmarks etc;
2. Get Windows 7 to boot up.

I do not expect to pay £400 for a product which ceases to work just 3 months after purchase. I note that my Acer Registration page says I have a warranty contract, so I await your response ASAP. Please reply to this email address, although I may only be able to see it during the hours of 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday, as the temperament of my old laptop is questionable to say the least, so I may not have access to my emails at home. You can also call me on xxxxx xxx xxx if required.

Many thanks

Figured I'd post this thread while I wait for a response...anybody have any ideas on what can be done?

Any help would be much appreciated. :wub:

A Windows 7 disc might help you (depending on the problem) if you can find one.

Otherwise it'll probably be back to the Acer, never delt with their customer support so I have no idea how that will go. Its possible you might lose everything on the machine again depending on the issue.

These things happen I'm afraid, for any number of reasons.

Did you buy direct from Acer?

Nope, through Amazon.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say your motherboard has fried.

You've clearly got another PC of some sort. Try making some sort of bootable USB drive or DVD (you can run Ubuntu from a DVD, though it's slow as hell) to try to rule out an HDD failure.

Or you could just forget trying to figure out what it is and send it to them since it's still under warranty. It's what I'd do.

If you bought it from Amazon, contact them.

If you need to recover files and stuff urgently then remove the HDD, buy a USB HDD caddy and copy the files you need over to another computer if you have access to one.

And then learn from the experience and get a cloud storage service. I don't worry about losing an HDD or just swapping out HDs and new installs because all my important data is stored on my dropbox. All I have to do is install dropbox and all my stuff magically pops up on my new HD.

If you want an account do me a favor and use this link so I get some extra storage for free (you'll get an extra 500MB too).

Alternatively MS SkyDrive and Google Drive are pretty good.

The whole idea of putting personal data somewhere out in the internet seems to me to be one thats just waiting for any number of major failures to happen.

If you want to keep your data safe then back it up yourself.

As Falsey said, contact Amazon. I am pretty sure I was told when I got my Acer laptop, that Acer's customer service was gooseberry fool.

HSH28 wrote:The whole idea of putting personal data somewhere out in the internet seems to me to be one thats just waiting for any number of major failures to happen.

If you want to keep your data safe then back it up yourself.

Yeah, alright, Hugo.

If my HDD fails the same day Dropbox's servers are annihilated I'll probably just suck it up, tbh.

Harry Bizzle wrote:
HSH28 wrote:The whole idea of putting personal data somewhere out in the internet seems to me to be one thats just waiting for any number of major failures to happen.

If you want to keep your data safe then back it up yourself.

Yeah, alright, Hugo.

If my HDD fails the same day Dropbox's servers are annihilated I'll probably just suck it up, tbh.

And when Dropbox gets hacked?

No point worrying about several unlikely events happening at once. You'll make yourself unwell.

Slartibartfast wrote:No point worrying about several unlikely events happening at once. You'll make yourself unwell.

The issue isn't that several things would happen at the same time, its that any one of them is very likely to happen at some point.

1cmanny1 wrote:As Falsey said, contact Amazon. I am pretty sure I was told when I got my Acer laptop, that Acer's customer service was gooseberry fool.

I'm not Falsey.

Oh Teh Noes wrote:
1cmanny1 wrote:As Falsey said, contact Amazon. I am pretty sure I was told when I got my Acer laptop, that Acer's customer service was gooseberry fool.

I'm not Falsey.

Jesus christ :slol:

I am not going crazy.

HSH28 wrote:
Harry Bizzle wrote:
HSH28 wrote:The whole idea of putting personal data somewhere out in the internet seems to me to be one thats just waiting for any number of major failures to happen.

If you want to keep your data safe then back it up yourself.

Yeah, alright, Hugo.

If my HDD fails the same day Dropbox's servers are annihilated I'll probably just suck it up, tbh.

And when Dropbox gets hacked?

They can keep all my powerpoint presentation and notes, tbh. Not really the end of the world.

When I say "my important files." I mean files which are important to me. They are largely worthless to anyone else.

And anything remotely sensitive is encrypted with AES.

And Dropbox encrypt your files in AES-256 as well. So if anyone decides brute forcing your DropBox by breaking into their servers is a good idea, they might actually be able to break AES-256, if they've got a super computer and thousands of years to spend doing it.

Mafro wrote:If you need to recover files and stuff urgently then remove the HDD, buy a USB HDD caddy and copy the files you need over to another computer if you have access to one.

Thanks for the tip, I've ordered one of those. Once it gets here, I'll attempt to get the files off it, then try a system recovery. I don't want to go through the ballache of sending it back to Acer (and being charged £50 for it :roll:

) if a system recovery can fix things.

I figured Amazon would just tell me to contact Acer, so I didn't see much point in telling them. What do you think they will do that Acer won't?

You should definitely contact Amazon. Their customer support is usually fantastic. If you look here, they specifically tell you to call them about Acer problems.

Are you sure Acer will charge you £50? You should have a 12 month warranty.

Yes, because they need me to send the recovery disks to them, which I can't because I need the laptop to do it. Guess the lesson is to make them as soon as you get a new laptop :fp:

Major Laptop Problem - Help Needed!

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