Aspire E5 ... E15-571-304M ... won't boot

incrisis

I have had this laptop forl less than a year and recently updated to W10, not sure if the updating is relevant as it was the free upgrade from Microsoft...

Tonight it stopped working, not had any problems with it before now, I wasn't doing anything sinister just listening to some tunes on youtube with FB and a forum open when youtube stopped and other pages wouldn't refresh. I couldn't power down so pressed the power button and it shut down. When I pressed the power button to restart all I got was the ACER 'explore beyond limits' screen and nothing else. I tried a couple of times to reboot and didn't get past this.

I have tried pressing Alt+F10 and have managed to get a 'please wait' on the screen under the Acer logo and the screen flashes a couple of times but nothing happens.

I have tried F12 and F2, nothing... I have removed battery, pressed power key for 20 seconds and up to a minute but still nothing.
I put the USB in that I created a restore on but can't access it.
Searching for solutions is coming up with blanks, has anyone else experienced this?

IronFly

if you plug "restore USB" and press F12 at boot, are you able to enter Boot device list?

 

can you also try to remove the HDD from it's bay and boot pressing F2?

 

remove also the ram stick and try to boot to BIOS pressing F2, then put back the ram sticks.

incrisis

Nothing happens when I press F2 or F12.

I removed the hard drive and when I started up and pressed F2 it went into the set up utility menu. Under the main tab F12 boot menu was disabled so I enabled it, then saved changes on exit and it came up with a no bootable device screen.

I plugged the hard drive back in and it went back to doing nothing more than showing the Acer logo, pressing F2 or F12 does nothing.
I haven't removed the ram yet as that means taking the mother board out, have to access everything by removing the keyboard on this model.

IronFly

You don't need to remove ram sticks, since the HDD seems the real issue.

 

if you have an external USB/HDD dock, i would try to connect this HDD to another PC and check if it's able to access it.

incrisis

I don't have an external dock for a laptop hdd, only for PC hdd.
As it is only a few months old I am going to take it back to the shop and see what they say rather than mess it up even more by fiddling.

Thanks for your help.. 

IronFly

You welcome.

incrisis

Update on this ...

I took the laptop back to PC World and they have had to replace the hdd, no big worry as everything I had was backed up elsewere anyway....

I have updated everything and it is now ready to upgrade to Windows 10 again, but before I do the upgrade I want to make sure I have a recovery USB, but everytime I have tried to create one it starts ok but takes an absolute age to copy the files across, 3 to 4 hours was the last time. Then just before the bar is totally green it tells me that it failed. I have tried this four times now and get the same results. I have been unable to copy to disc, none of the discs I have seem to be recognised.

I had a google and came across a few things and also realised that the partition on the hdd that usually has the recovery files was empty. I followed this guide .... https://www.winhelp.us/custom-recovery-image-in-windows-8.html ..... but all that gave me was a recovery image, which I am pretty sure you can't carry out a rull restore from... Or am I wrong?

I must be doing something wrong somewhere but can't work out what.....

IronFly

Are you using Acer erecovery or Microsoft tool to create an USB recovery?

 

any error code about it?

 

Since you changed the HDD, the new OS was Acer OEM or plain Microsoft windows?

incrisis

Using the search function whether I go through the Acer recovery or just Create recovery drive, I get this pop up..

Then it goes through the process of copying files, until it gets to nearly finished and then saying it has failed.

The tech guys at PC World replaced the hdd when it was sent away so not sure whether it was Acer OEM or just Microsoft windows.

IronFly

You must check this.

 

press windows key logo + x

select Disk Manager

 

check if any recovery partition of about 15-20GB is listed.

incrisis

There is a healthy recover partition at 25gb, says it is empty, no drive letter.

IronFly

ok, so it's here and empy and no letter is correct, since it's an hidden partition.

 

what's the size of your USB flash drive?

incrisis

USB flash drive is 32gb...