Duplicated operating system on boot on my Aspire 5. Any suggestions how i can fix this?

RISC2531

My Aspire 5 laptop suddenly started asking me to choose between two seemingly identical windows operating systems (ie, labels were the same on the screen). I chose one (apparently the wrong one!) and now the laptop goes into a cycle where it tries to start, and the acer symbol flashes on teh screen and i can hear the fan start, then the screen goes dark and it shuts down, it then continues to do this in a loop. I have been unable to break the cycle with the power button. Any suggestions how i can fix this?

[Edited the thread to add model number to the title]

RISC2531

… i should also add, the laptop is 2 years old and the battery is working fine (by coincidence i did a check recently)

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1325524#Comment_1325524

Read these 8 different options here. Or you can also boot into Advanced Startup Options by turning off your PC during system startup about three consecutive times. When you turn on your PC and a logo appears, press and hold the power button for a few seconds to force shutdown. Do that three or four consecutive times. Your PC will automatically restart at the Windows Recovery Environment after the third or fourth hard reboot.

This method is best for rare occasions users can’t access the Windows desktop. If you haven’t set up a USB recovery drive, you can still access WindowsRE from the startup by hard rebooting three times. Then you can troubleshoot the issue with tools like Advanced Startup Repair. Good luck.

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RISC2531

Thank you for your response, but unfortunately none of these approaches worked. The laptop never gets past the acer symbol before it shuts itself down (so it never gets to the recovery environment). Do you know if there some way to bypass whatever is shutting the system down?

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1325557#Comment_1325557

First, what is your laptop model number. as when you get to the login OS Blue screen like below

Do the below steps:

Note: login to the OS which you don't want to delete, so that you can select the other OS.

• Type msconfig and hit enter to open system configuration.
• Click on Boot option.

Now you can see two OS installed in your PC. Select the one which you want to delete and click on delete option and then you will not have two OS systems at startup. Good luck..

You should only have this in msconfig

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RISC2531

thanks i am on Aspire 5 running windows 11. I have now managed to insert a USB with Windows 11 and have made it to the administrator screen (looks like DOS style typeface). So that means I can’t get to your helpful directions above. Do you know how i can use the black screen to navigate to the operating system and change the default to the correct system file (not the corrupted one that came with the last windows update)?