hardware or software problem?

[rc]

Hello group,

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running windows vista boots up through windows
screen and then continues to blank/black screen. At this point nothing more
happens. Machine was running perfectly fine. Then I logged off , shutdown,
and unplugged charger/power simply to move to another location. When I
attempted to use it again (less than 5 minutes later) I got the result I
described above. If this sounds familiar to anyone, your knowledge and
suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ray]

Hello group,

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running windows vista boots up through windows
screen and then continues to blank/black screen. At this point nothing
more happens. Machine was running perfectly fine. Then I logged off ,
shutdown, and unplugged charger/power simply to move to another
location. When I attempted to use it again (less than 5 minutes later)
I got the result I described above. If this sounds familiar to anyone,
your knowledge and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

It's quite simple to tell if it's a hardware problem or not. Simply boot
up a Linux Live CD - if it boots, that rules out everything but the hard
drive. 'badblocks' will take care of that.

 

[rc]

Thanks, any suggestions on which Linux live cd is best?

 

[ray]

Thanks, any suggestions on which Linux live cd is best? "ray"

For this exercise, it would matter very little - they are all extremely
capable. I'd probably go with either the 'systemrescue' or 'parted magic'
CD - see distrowatch.com for links.

 

[rc]

ok thanks, it booted with the Linus live cd. So am I to assume its a hard
drive issue now

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hello group,

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running windows vista boots up through windows
screen and then continues to blank/black screen. At this point nothing more
happens. Machine was running perfectly fine. Then I logged off , shutdown,
and unplugged charger/power simply to move to another location. When I
attempted to use it again (less than 5 minutes later) I got the result I
described above. If this sounds familiar to anyone, your knowledge and
suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

When you say "logged off, shutdown", do you mean you logged off from the
Start button and then shut down in software from the button on the screen,
or did you shut off using the hardware power button?

If the latter, that could possibly cause a file corruption or disk
corruption problem.

ISTM that logging off and shutting down, rather than shutting down
directly, is a bit unusual. Or even very unusual. Shutting down logs users
off as part of the process...

 

[ray]

ok thanks, it booted with the Linus live cd. So am I to assume its a
hard drive issue now

Didn't say that. I'd say that if it fully boots a Linux Live CD, then you
can pretty safely assume that all the hardware but the hard disk is OK
(could still be an issue with a power supply - they can be really weird).
Jury is still out on the hard drive, but you've pretty much narrowed it
down to the hard drive or your system software. Boot the Live CD, start a
terminal window and run 'badblocks' on the hard drive. That should give
you a pretty good idea if the drive is bad - you could also go to the
manufacturers web site and probably download a diagnostic CD image - boot
from that and it should thoroughly check the drive.

 

[rc]

Ray, thanks

Gene,

Logged off from the start button and then shut down in software from the
button on the screen

 

[rc]

ok, assuming its a system software issue I downloaded a recovery cd. I then
booted from the cd, a screen indicating windows is installing appears and
then a screen with the option to repair appears. I select repair and two
dialog boxes show up both labled "system recovery options" . One is
searching for windows installations. The other in the background lists the
one installation that I have. But the one in the foreground never stops
searching! And I can't do anything til it does. I was going to attempt a
repair with an installation disk from a friend or relative but given this
last episode I'm not sure anything different would happen.

 

[rc]

Hi Dave,

I downloaded it from
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/download-windows-vista-x64-recovery-disc/

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running windows vista boots up through
windows screen and then continues to blank/black screen. At this
point nothing more happens. Machine was running perfectly fine.
Then I logged off , shutdown, and unplugged charger/power simply to
move to another location. When I attempted to use it again (less
than 5 minutes later) I got the result I described above. If this
sounds familiar to anyone, your knowledge and suggestions would be
appreciated.

When you say "logged off, shutdown", do you mean you logged off
from the Start button and then shut down in software from the
button on the screen, or did you shut off using the hardware power
button?
If the latter, that could possibly cause a file corruption or disk
corruption problem.

ISTM that logging off and shutting down, rather than shutting down
directly, is a bit unusual. Or even very unusual. Shutting down
logs users off as part of the process...

Ray, thanks

ok, assuming its a system software issue I downloaded a recovery
cd. I then booted from the cd, a screen indicating windows is
installing appears and then a screen with the option to repair
appears. I select repair and two dialog boxes show up both labled
"system recovery options" . One is searching for windows
installations. The other in the background lists the one
installation that I have. But the one in the foreground never stops
searching! And I can't do anything til it does. I was going to
attempt a repair with an installation disk from a friend or
relative but given this last episode I'm not sure anything
different would happen.

What sort of recovery disk? Was it a proper Vista repair disk?

I downloaded it from
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/download-windows-vista-x64-recovery-disc/

So the answer to the second question is "No".

What happened when/if you tried to boot into Safe Mode?

 

[rc]

it hangs at "crcdisk.sys"

So the answer to the second question is "No".

What happened when/if you tried to boot into Safe Mode?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

it hangs at "crcdisk.sys"

May be a bad hard disk drive, bad controller or bad cable. (I'd bet hard
disk drive.)

How's your backups - when was the last time you performed them in other
words (how much will you lose if you have to rebuild from scratch?)

You might look at this conversation thread:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...p/thread/86ef2cea-808a-40ec-bc30-7a426577f48d
Specifically all the things the first poster tried (one may work for you
whether or not any worked for them) and Andy Song's advice later on.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

it hangs at "crcdisk.sys"

That's a bit misleading. *Every* safe mode boot in Windows Vista stops
displaying command lines at crcdisk.sys. What happens after that is not
displayed until the GUI starts to appear, and a lot of stuff is going on
behind the scenes during that fairly long interval.

So all you really know is that the first part of the safe-mode boot was
successful and a failure occurred before the GUI showed up.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I think you'll find that these disks offered by Neosmart are
identical to repair disks created by Vista, so the answer is 'Yes'.

I would beg to differ - even if they turn out to be identical - I am unsure
I would call them "proper" unless they came with my system - the actual
original Windows Vista installation media or methodology that the OEM
granted me (although I would be one to make sure I got the original
installation media - not recovery/restore media.)

Why - things do get changed - unknown to even the authors in some cases - on
the Internet. Especially with mirror sites, etc. I would not trust very
many downloads when it comes to something like this. ;-)

Perhaps I am being overly paranoid - but seeing as how something like this
has been exploited in the past (recent past even - not necessarily for
Microsoft products - but for an even smaller audience) - I would have
trouble trusting anything that is not coming straight from a
password-protected trusted source that preferably have some actual
investment in the product I am working on with maybe even further checks and
balances in place because of that investment.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

The repair disk in question here is not an installation disk. It is
a 170 M/b pre-installation image. When Vista was at SP1 stage
Microsoft introduced the facility to create a simple boot disk to run a
few repair
options. For some reason they stopped supporting this in SP2.
The file to create the disk, Recdisc.exe, is still in the System32
folder but it does nothing when you double-click it.
If you want to see one, here's one I created:
Vista 32 bit Repair Disk
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DNXH16ZK

My point has not changed.

Unless I get it from a protected known source - I would not call it
"proper". If it came with the system or I downloaded it somehow from
Microsoft (password-protected site preferrably) - I just don't think I could
trust something to repair my operating system at that base of a level.

Things can (and do) get changed on supposedly good web sites and their
mirrors - the recent IRC/Linux issues show that. Microsoft is a larger
attack target and I just cannot see recommending downloading something like
that if the user has (and they should) other options that are more
'certain' - like CDs that came with the computer, a manufacturer to call to
get said CDs, etc.

If there is a facility to create the disk out there (steps from Microsoft) I
would gladly link to those steps/etc - but I would still say that something
from "neosmart.net" for repairing my operating system from the ground up may
not be as trustworthy as something that came with my system or I could get
from my system manufacturer (people with something to possibly lose if
things go wrong - where the neosmart people could just shrug their shoulders
and move on.)

Not saying it wouldn't work, may be 100% legitimate, etc. I might even use
it after a few checks after the download - *but* I wouldn't throw it out
there as the first option to anyone.

 

[Billns]

Hello group,

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running windows vista boots up through windows
screen and then continues to blank/black screen. At this point nothing more
happens. Machine was running perfectly fine. Then I logged off , shutdown,
and unplugged charger/power simply to move to another location. When I
attempted to use it again (less than 5 minutes later) I got the result I
described above. If this sounds familiar to anyone, your knowledge and
suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Acer laptops include a hidden partition so that the machine can be
returned to its factory-delivered configuration. See the user manual or
visit Acer's site to download a manual for your machine.

Acer also recommends that you create restore DVD's which will do the
same thing.

Be aware that you'll lose all your documents and programs installed
after you first got the machine.

If the hard disk has really gone south the above approach won't work either.

Bill