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Thread ID: 82254	2007-08-21 04:39:00	Activating XP on Acer Aspire 3620	Geek4414 (12000)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
583282	2007-08-21 04:39:00	Been trying to fix an Acer Aspire 3620 with XP Home that freezes on start up, attempted to do a repair came up with a few error messages, and it didn't boot, just sat at the black Windows XP please wait screen forever . Did another repair install and this time, it came all the way up to the login screen . Upon logging in, it asked me to activate xp, which I did and it activated successfully and rebooted the laptop and upon booting, it asked me to do that again! I tried to activate it again and this time it failed and asked me to phone MS . I tried to get the installation ID from the OOBE screen but it only shows ------, so I rebooted and logged in as a different user and this time a proper installation ID came up . I rang the 0800 and got the activation key and it activated successfully, but the same cycle repeats again after rebooting! This still happen even after I re-formatted the drive and reinstalled from clean . It's driving me mad . By the way, the owner of the laptop do not have any recovery disc and I think it didn't come with any, the user is supposed to make them using Acer eRecovery or something . I downloaded the manual from Acer and it said that the eRecovery system can be used to reset the laptop back to factory default and I am supposed to press Alt-F10 to bring up eRecovery at boot time or anytime without XP, but pressing Alt-F10 did nothing . So I couldn't reset the system back to default, so I used another copy of XP Home CD and did a re-format and clean install, but the same viscious cycle continues . Anyway, there are some bad sectors on the HDD, I am going to replace the drive and do a clean install and hopefully it will break out of that cycle . I read somewhere that a school ran into the same problem when they reloaded some of their PC and they had to get a BIOS patch to fix it . Does anyone know of such thing for the Aspire 3620?	Geek4414 (12000)
583283	2007-08-21 05:13:00	Been trying to fix an Acer Aspire 3620 with XP Home that freezes on start up, attempted to do a repair Upon logging in, it asked me to activate xp, which I did and it activated successfully and rebooted the laptop and upon booting, it asked me to do that again! This still happen even after I re-formatted the drive and reinstalled from clean . I downloaded the manual from Acer and it said that the eRecovery system can be used to reset the laptop back to factory default and I am supposed to press Alt-F10 to bring up eRecovery at boot time or anytime without XP, but pressing Alt-F10 did nothing . So I couldn't reset the system back to default, so I used another copy of XP Home CD and did a re-format and clean install, but the same viscious cycle continues . Are you qualified to be doing this? Why didn't you diagnose the "freezing" problem before wiping it and installing WIndows again? Did you retrieve his data before you even started this? No? I bet . You've probably killed the recovery partition now . Congratulations .	pctek (84)
583284	2007-08-21 05:36:00	Anyway, there are some bad sectors on the HDD, I am going to replace the drive and do a clean install and hopefully it will break out of that cycle. What message or software advised of bad sectors on the Drive? While bad sectors may cause the problem it may also be something completely different, hence forking out for a new HD may be a waste of money. As PCtek pointed out - If you have pressed the correct keys and the recovery window does not open then its a good chance the partition has been deleted. Or are you trying to reset the BIOS back to default? Regarding the BIOS patch, if there is such a thing it should be on the download page for the make/model of the laptop from the Manufactures. First you have to make sure it is the HD causing problems, other wise you could be throwing away money. Normally if a drive has bad sectors when reformatting they are marked as bad and data cant be written to them, the drive would really have to be in a terrible state to fail every time so fast after a format / reinstall.	wainuitech (129)
583285	2007-08-21 05:49:00	TEST stuff.......dont GUESS..........	drcspy (146)
583286	2007-08-21 07:50:00	Had nothing better to do while other half is getting dinner, so to answer my own question:rolleyes: There appears to be NO BIOS Patch for the Acer 3620, not on the Acer download Page any way.	wainuitech (129)
583287	2007-08-21 21:24:00	Thank you for everyone's reply . Especially, a special thanks to PCtek's comment . No, I didn't retreive the data off the hard drive because the owner specifically said she didn't need any of the data, so no point wasting time on that . (Time is money) Yes, I know about the recovery partition and it is still there, it has not been deleted . I can't seem to get the recovery partition to boot up as the manual suggested (Press Alt-F10) . I cannot find anything in the BIOS setting that can boot up the recovery partition either . Yes, I've checked on Acer's site and can't find any BIOS patch, the only thing remotely likely is AcerLAppFix . exe . The bad sectors are reported by scandisk when XP starts up . I know about bad sectors, I have had many drives died on me in the past, so i've learn not to trust drives that have started to develop bad sectors . Call me paranoid if you want . :waughh: This laptop is a work PC shared by 3 people, so it has not been handled with TLC, so I wouldn't be surprised that it has had a rough short life . There is no point in spending more time in trying to resurrect this laptop and got it working and have the drive die a month later now, is it? That way, the owner will have to spend even more money for even more hassles . To cut a long story short, sometimes, it's cheaper to spend a little bit more money to have the problem fixed properly than to patch something that will flare up again . I have learnt that from my 20 years+ in the IT industry . To be honest, the hard drive is only worth one hour of labour, so no point mucking around clocking up more hours now . Anyway, thanks to all who tried to help .	Geek4414 (12000)
583288	2007-08-21 21:30:00	[Quote] To cut a long story short, sometimes, it's cheaper to spend a little bit more money to have the problem fixed properly than to patch something that will flare up again . [End] Aint that the truth:thumbs: I've had a few customers who wanted the "cheaper fix" and after ignoring the advice to fix it correctly, they end up paying more in the long run as the job has to be redone again, and then costing more .	wainuitech (129)
583289	2007-08-22 00:50:00	[Quote] To cut a long story short, sometimes, it's cheaper to spend a little bit more money to have the problem fixed properly than to patch something that will flare up again . [End] Aint that the truth:thumbs: I've had a few customers who wanted the "cheaper fix" and after ignoring the advice to fix it correctly, they end up paying more in the long run as the job has to be redone again, and then costing more . EXACTLY ! :cool: Anyway, I've just downloaded Parted Magic LiveCD 1 . 8, and managed to boot into the eRecovery partition . It is restoring the XP partition now as we speak . Even though this resets the system back to factory default, I will still clone the eRecovery and XP partition onto a new hard drive though, just in case the existing HDD is in fact a bit flaky .	Geek4414 (12000)
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