Acer Aspire 3682 boot problem

[Goran.P]

I have notebook aspire 3682 for repair,cos on boot it says:A disk read error occured,Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.Press restart won't do anything.Please help me !!!!!
Tell me if I must reinstall OS.I have Windows Vista Home Basic DVD for upgrade,wich come with the notebook.

[studiot]

hello Goran

Can you start in safe mode.

As the laptop boots keep hitting the F8 key to get to the 'boot options screen'

Choose safe mode.

If it will start in safe mode let it start,
Shut down and try restart normally.

Then post again because there is more.


Studio T

[hopperdave2000]

I'm not really familiar with Vista yet, but WinXP gives a similar error when one (or more) of the following things happens: corrupt/missing boot.ini file, corrupt master boot record, corrupt boot sector, corrupt/missing ntdetect.com file. Like I said, these are WinXP things, but I'm sure Vista has equals. A little research at the MS knowledge base couldn't hurt... a safe re-install of the OS 'over-the-top' of itself will probably fix the problem, and you shouldn't lose any data in the process.... good luck!

hopperdave2000

[Goran.P]

No,I can,t boot in safe mode.The error is in the begining of the boot.I try to reinstall windows,but in section were to choose partition I saw three partitions in following order:F,C and D.I aborted the installation of windows only to ask you good people what F is stand for.I know that C partition must be first in order to boot properly.Thank you studiot for your reply!!!!!!!

[studiot]

Windows Vista Home Basic DVD for upgrade

Is the laptop new and under guarantee?

Upggrade DVD? Did the laptop start with XP? or do you mean recovery DVD?

Who did the 'upgrade' ?

The question of C,D (E = DVD Drive??) and F partitions depends on how you got Vista.

If you put Vista on as an upgrade you have a choice of keeping and dual booting with XP on a separate partition. Did you do this?

Studio T

[Goran.P]

1.it's not under guarantee.2.This is the customer laptop,I just repair them.The DVD that customer give to me is Windows Vista Anytime Upgrade disc.3.I think the upgrade was made by Acer.

[studiot]

I try to reinstall windows,but in section were to choose partition I saw three partitions in following order:F,C and D.

I expect the F partition (first) is the ACER recovery partion. They ae usually first, even if labelled with later letters.
I cannot tell what the other two are unless there is one for Vista and one for XP.

It is likely that the boot.ini has got fouled up. since you can control the pc from the DVD drive, try to boot into the repair console and read the boot .ini file.

Try also the command

bootcfg/ rebuild


Studio T

[Goran.P]

studiot,I can't go anywere.the only place I can go is bios.I can't type or do anything on this laptop.

[hopperdave2000]

You have to boot to the CD drive with the Windows disc in it, then enter the recovery console (you'll be asked if you want to press 'R' for recovery console at some point during the boot to the Windows disc) and type in the command that StudioT mentioned in the above post. StudioT and I both think the problem is with the boot.ini file (as I stated way above, and StudioT did also). This file tells the PC what OS to load and where that OS is. If this file is corrupt or missing, you'll get errors very similar to what you're getting now.

hopperdave2000

[Goran.P]

ok.I want to format HD, and create new partitions,so I want to know is it posible to do without f: partition.

[studiot]

Have you found out which partition Vista is in? I would try first to reinstall over the top of the existing because you only have an upgrade DVD. The upgrade DVD will look for a valid XP installation or ask for the XP CD if you try to put it on a as a clean install.

Vista does not use the BOOT.INI file as XP does. It uses a binary file BCDstore.
You can only edit this with the Vista tool BCDEDIT.exe, located in \windows\system32. This may also be available on your upgrade DVD.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa906211.aspx

Studio T

[Goran.P]

studiot,I want to thank you for all your replys ,belive me I check all this tips you send me with no progress.So I conntact the owner of the laptop,to tell me the truth,how he screwed up his laptop,and he tell me that 24 days ago he hit hard the keybord,cos he son wanted to play on the comp.So I have copy of HDD Regenerator,run on boot ,and it show a lot of ba dsectors,ex:in first 50 mb of the hard disk 22 errors.I belive that when he hit the keyboard ,he damage the surface of the hard disk.I go to Acer forum and they told me that it's posible to damage the hard disk like that.
Thank you for your advices.
Goran

[studiot]

Why do customers often hide the truth? Or want two jobs for the price of one?

I had one once where the "pc worked fine for 2 years then just stopped working" and "I swear it has never been opened"

I only noticed by accident that the master slave jumper has been moved to slave. I moved it back -instant success.

The owner would not admit that he had opened the case and fiddled. He would rather pay the extra hour and a half labour.

Good luck


Studio T