Aspire 5734Z won't boot to DVD or USB

acerdeville
acerdeville Member Posts: 8 New User

I have an older 5734Z, I have been dual booting window 7 and Ubuntu Linux. Please don't ask why, but a couple nights ago I got extremely mad, and ended up inserting my Linux live cd, and formatting the entire hdd to Fat32, I only mention this to show why I'm trying to reinstall.

 

So the next day, I get my Windows 7 install disk insert it in the DVD drive, rebooted, computer finished POST, and immediately went to a blank screen with a flashing cursor, the PC is completely unresponsive, or even locked up, it does not respond to anything but the power button. This happened about 5 times, so I got my Linux install CD, and got the same result, POST to flashing cursor on a blank screen and the pc is totally unresponsive, only option is to press the power button until it shuts off. I try a couple of other install disk same result.

 

Then I get a USB DVD drive, and try all the different installation media, with the same result. So I get another pc, and create a USB flash drive installer, with the same flashing cursor and blank screen. I know that formatting the drive has no effect on whether it load the DVD/USB installation media, I know that what the hdd is formatted to has no effect on booting to install media, I know that I don't need to format before reinstalling, but at the time reinstalling wasn't exactly what was on my mind, I just wanted the computer blank. This is all stuff I have been told on other forums instead of addressing my problem, which is why won't it boot to either the DVD/USB DVD/USB flash drives?

Best Answer

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Try repeatedly tapping the F2 key immediately after powering on to try to get into the bios menu. If you can, go to advanced settings and try setting the DVD first in the boot sequence to try re-installing.

     

    Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Try repeatedly tapping the F2 key immediately after powering on to try to get into the bios menu. If you can, go to advanced settings and try setting the DVD first in the boot sequence to try re-installing.

     

    Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • acerdeville
    acerdeville Member Posts: 8 New User

    Thanks for the reply, I ended up downloading a copy of GParted, and ran it. Found out the entire drive had been changed to logical, and the boot flag turned off, got that fixed and it booted right up. Since you were the only one that answered me, I went ahead and gave a thumbs up and accepted as the right answer. 

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer

    Congrats. Are you mad yet? 8^) Still curious as to why the DVD or stick couldn't boot? You might want to consider running virtuals under one of VMWare's freeware players. I'd guess that maddening stuff like you just experienced are less likely to happen. I have Win98SE, WinXP & SuSE as guests under Win7 on an A0722 netbook for compatibility with Linux and old Win software/hardware. I can also run all 4 at the same time and communicate between each via the network.

     

    Jack E/NJ  

    Jack E/NJ

  • acerdeville
    acerdeville Member Posts: 8 New User
    See the whole story , I had 2 laptops quit the same day. The other one ended up being a short of some kind. When plugging back in after doing a complete electrical discharge, the keyboard got hot enough to actually burn my hand.

    It wouldn't boot because of the boot flag being off. The boot flag tells the BIOS if a drive can be used for an OS. If it's off that says the disk does not contain a OS.
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