Aspire 5820T boot problem

markw314
markw314 Member Posts: 2 New User

I've got a two and half year old Aspire 5820T that, until this week, has been great. However now it will not boot. Period. I have Windows 7 and Linux Mint on it. I can't boot at all to windows (even the repair process won't work) and booting to Linux will only go to a command prompt. I haven't delved into the inux logs to see where it's failing, but I'm concerned that it might not just be a HD problem, but a controller or video problem.

 

More details...

 

I can usually (not not always) get to the grub screen. I've got a mem test running right now, but so far it looks clean.

If I select Windows 7 as the boot environemtn, it goes toa lighted black screen (as opposed to a totally dark monitor).

If I select the windows repair option, it usually goes to a lighed dark screen, but has on one or two occassions made it as far as the "One moment please..." screen. Then it just hangs.

I can run the memtest (DOS-style window), but as I said, it's been clean so far.

Booting to Linux "works" in that I can get to a prompt (rather than a GUI), but it's not the full version of Mint. It's a bare bones environment.

 

Any ideas? I'm well past my warranty and the extended warranty from AmEx.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark

Answers

  • Inspiration101
    Inspiration101 Member Posts: 185 Mr. Fixit WiFi Icon

    You could try booting into safe mode rather than letting windows try to fix itself...... in all my years I don't think I have ever seen it "fix" anything by itself.  To go into Windows safe mode tap f8 lots when you power up until you get the menu screen.

     

    I would be tempted to use a bootable flashstick that has an additional program on it like windows explorer or acronis disc director.  With this I would backup all the data I wished to keep and then wipe the HDD completely and start with a fresh install.

     

    Alternatively you could also download and burn off a copy of pccheck (bootable CD) and run the diagnostic software on this, but even if everything passes you are still in the situation of a computer that does not boot.

     

    Both of the above are based on the presumption you have a 2nd working computer of course !

  • markw314
    markw314 Member Posts: 2 New User

    I'm in the process of moving, so my other computers are boxed up. But I can't even get a stable boot to the F8 menu to boot into safe mode. About 80% of the time it hangs up after any selection from the grub menu. Even booting to linux gives me issues, which makes me think it's not a software issue, but either a firmware of hardware problem.

  • supersaiyajiin
    supersaiyajiin Member Posts: 6 New User

    Hey Mark,

     

         As suggested above you could boot from a Flash Drive or external hard drive via USB, but I would suggest putting a hard drive diagnostic utility on either drive to test your boot drive; or (obviously this is very inconvenient due to your moving situation) try your hard drive in a desktop and run diagnostic software on it that way. I've had this same issue you are experiencing on a desktop computer and after extensively testing it using a different brand new hard drive, different SATA cables etc.. it came down to a faulty SATA controller on the motherboard which is a rare problem in my experience of dealing with computers. I hope you don't have a hardware problem! Good luck.

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