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Oldschool77

Oldschool77

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Hello All! My daughters Acer Aspire V5-561P-6823 w/Win 8.1 has been giving her fits. She does not live at home now so I don't know many details. This has her school work on it.

What I do know is that it wouldn't shut down properly and would start "Auto-repair". Still no joy. If she has an OS disc it's location is unknown, most likely she was supposed to burn a copy. She has lost the paperwork to.

My nephew used to work at a call center some years ago(But 8 & 8.1 is to new for him) looked at it and decided that possibly an update may have fouled it. He pulled the battery and said to leave it out for 24 hr. He also suggested a "Windows boost(er)". Does anyone know of a safe, reliable site she can get the download? Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
The best thing right now is to leave it running until you can get a repair / boot disc.
The last I knew MS would have a reserve copy of the install files somewhere on the C drive.
Being it's Win 8 / 8.1, it changes some from previous versions.
Win 8 was suppose to be one OS for tablets and laptops with added support fro touch screens.
It didn't sit well for users as it was confusing. Now they abandon it in favor of developing Win 9 /10.

If you pulled the battery you would probably have to yank the CMOS battery as well. as it saves system settings.
Just pulling the power battery won't do all that much that I know of???
I never heard of pulling battery out to reset the laptop before.

Do a search on the particular laptop with Win 8 issues.
You'll be surprised of all the of info that is out there.

JD
 
What researching she has done on this model makes her think that the hard drive is going bad. I haven't done any research myself. I can barely surf the net myself. Unfortunately this is a"Mart" store purchase(I said to pay a little more and buy from a local shop), still under warranty, who would likely exchange before repair. There goes her school work. A local shop could probably fix it, but void warranty. Saving school work.

Sigh, I guess I'll try to find out her schedule and meet her at the "Mart" store and find out what they will do before proceeding any further.
 
if it's really a hard drive issue - have a go with GRC's SpinRite - it might get things back to a point where she can at least get her data off the drive prior to repairing/exchanging the laptop.

( https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm )
 
Recovering from the hard drive during startup

Turn on your computer, then press*<Alt>*+*<F10>*during startup to open*Acer*
eRecovery ManagementClick*Restore Operating System to Factory DefaultsClick*Next. Your hard drive&#8217;s original, factory-loaded contents will be recovered. This process will take several minutes.
 
FWIW:

When starting up (either by rebooting, or removing power/battery), press and hold the shift key -- that should get it to "safe boot".

If that doesn't work, you can always do ^ the Alt+F10, but if you restore from the disk image partition, you will likely lose all the files on the hard drive.

If there are valuable files on the drive, you can always remove it and hook it up to another computer to pull the files off...

Let us know what is going on...
 
Update: She found her paperwork, called Acer tech support and walked her through some diagnostic checks(Batt. in). They determined that it was a OS crash, what she could understand through the tech's accent. And for ~$50 they would send her OS disc's or she could ship it in for repairs. I am of the opinion that if it crashed once it will happen again.

She was able to reconstruct her school work and all she would lose(lost) music and pictures, some are irreplaceable. I! think at this point it should go back to the "Mart" store for an exchange. I THANK ALL of you for your help and suggestions so far!
 
Oldschool77 said:
Update: She found her paperwork, called Acer tech support and walked her through some diagnostic checks(Batt. in). They determined that it was a OS crash, what she could understand through the tech's accent. And for ~$50 they would send her OS disc's or she could ship it in for repairs. I am of the opinion that if it crashed once it will happen again.

She was able to reconstruct her school work and all she would lose(lost) music and pictures, some are irreplaceable. I! think at this point it should go back to the "Mart" store for an exchange. I THANK ALL of you for your help and suggestions so far!
Click to expand...

Why pay for what you already own? The OS is already on the hard drive in a hidden partition. Just follow the instructions previously posted.I doubt seriously it will crash again. Just re-install the OS, no need to return it.
 
Last edited:
if she takes it back odds are good that She will lose her data. concentrate on backing that up FIRST. then worry about windows.
Rex
 
I wouldnt restore nothing from the hidden boot partition, yet.

Can the OS boot?
Can use anything in windows? or force a Safe mode boot?

If the OS can boot i would click start or click the windows key to open the start menu.
Move mouse to right hand of the screen to open charms and select the gear.
Select Change PC settings at the bottom.
Select Update and Recovery
Select recovery.
Select Refresh your PC without affecting your files.


OR
if you can get the os to boot you can drop down to an elevated command prompt and type "sfc /scannow"
This might fix the messups.


BUT if you want to be safe, move the files she needs to a jumpdrive or some other external source such as ONEDRIVE that comes with windows 8.x. THen I would wipe the system clean, due to the fact that it might be a virus that ran though her computer. Or if you feel saucy on fixing it yourself, then i suggest using MBAM and Combofix.
 
Rex R said:
if she takes it back odds are good that She will lose her data. concentrate on backing that up FIRST. then worry about windows.
Click to expand...

+1 on this. If she takes the computer in for service without a solid backup safe back at home, the data is as good as gone.

Question: you mention that your daughter had schoolwork on the system. Is there any chance that she is attending a large R1 university that might have a computer help desk for students? I note that you're in Oklahoma; if she is attending OU or OSU, there is a good chance that she can get some degree of support from her university.

Good luck,
James
 
There should be a set of diagnostic tools installed on it. Run the testing suite for the hard drive before re-installing the OS. No sense in re-installing it on a bad drive.
 
To all this advice, I can add from personal experience if the data/information is worth saving save it to the hard drive, a thumb drive and a back up/portable hard drive or DVD. While none are indestructable that gives her two other copies in the event one is lost/corrupted. We had a virus (monkeyman iirc) that reworked our hard drive and hid everything on it, we had over 4000 pictures of our wedding, videos and pictures from our childrens births, basically everything except personal legal/ID information (SSNs and stuff we never store electronically).
 
Talked to my daughter today and got more details about her Acer tech call. They had her try getting into her recovery mgmt.- no joy, a very bad sign and other entry routes were tried. Most likely the disc the tech offered was a Recovery/Repair disc. Without a tech or nearly a tech to follow the input so far(I'm not even going to try anything, nuh uh, no way) we have decided to send it in.
 
AcidPaintball said:
I wouldnt restore nothing from the hidden boot partition, yet.

Can the OS boot?
Can use anything in windows? or force a Safe mode boot?

If the OS can boot i would click start or click the windows key to open the start menu.
Move mouse to right hand of the screen to open charms and select the gear.
Select Change PC settings at the bottom.
Select Update and Recovery
Select recovery.
Select Refresh your PC without affecting your files.


OR
if you can get the os to boot you can drop down to an elevated command prompt and type "sfc /scannow"
This might fix the messups.


BUT if you want to be safe, move the files she needs to a jumpdrive or some other external source such as ONEDRIVE that comes with windows 8.x. THen I would wipe the system clean, due to the fact that it might be a virus that ran though her computer. Or if you feel saucy on fixing it yourself, then i suggest using MBAM and Combofix.
Click to expand...

+1 to this with one caveat. Combofix is a great tool- very powerful. Also potentially dangerous due to the power it has. Malwarebytes is a much safer place to start just adjust the settings to scan for root kits first.
 
"Get a Mac" LOL! Dixon I have to many vehicles now. However it would come in handy when traffic decides to drive 25-30mph side by side(4-lane) in a 40mph zone. This is a daily occurrence during daylight and evening hrs. It's not the elderly, it's the 40-60 age group! NO KIDDING! I could run up on them and hit the air horn!

The problem I have is that I know no one that is comfortable working on machine w/WIN 8.1. Vista, only if I were to beg, plead and wail and if it is simple thing. XP & older, Yes if I were to beg only. Otherwise it's warranty/shop repair or a new(ish) machine. My 5+ yr. old, $300 Compaq w/WIN 7 Home desktop has served me well. Knocks on wood!
 
I learned the hard way, lost everything when my HD parked the head.
It cost me $15 + 3.85 S&H from HP for a new set up disk for the new HD.
I have two storage drives now I store everything on, on is a back up of the other.
Only thing on this new drive is the programs.
What bother me now is that all the software I have now probably won't work with the new OS's, 8.1 in perticular.
So I don't know what good are my files if I can't use the software anymore?
I have files from way back with original Windows programs, 2.1 I think was the next one out, or 3.1, can't remember.
 

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