please help

[Staffiez]

Hello

 

My son's laptop (acer) will boot up but then it freezes. I've tried going in thro safe mode but it doesn't run it. It has a black screen and all the windows programs scroll down, then it stops for about 30 seconds and just starts up normally not in safe mode.

 

 

I tried tapping F8 to start from last known but it comes up with a red screen called GRUBS4DOS it's something i'm not familiar with. It doesn't have a start from last known or start in safe mode option.

 

I will be honest with you, my son is 17 years old and spends half the time falling out with people on the laptop or xbox live so i wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't done something to him as they are always kicking each other off line and falling out, but it's something else if/when this happens. Oh and don't worry he has 6 month ban off laptop and xbox :mad:

[Armageddon]

Grub4dos is a alternative boot loader replacing windows master boot record , so the 1st question I have is do you have a windows disk ?

[Staffiez]

Hi

 

Ok we only have windows xp on disk but its loaded with vista, it didn't come with a copy

[Armageddon]

hello again you could try a Acer e-recovery restore , which would return the laptop to its factory state to do this press f10 when you see the acer logo this will take you through Acer's in built recovery

[Staffiez]

hello again you could try a Acer e-recovery restore , which would return the laptop to its factory state to do this press f10 when you see the acer logo this will take you through Acer's in built recovery

 

Ok Thanks, but really wanted to save programs if we can. Is there a way of starting from last known or booting from an xp disk.

I know the disk is older but i've done it with mine when it crashed once and it took the bits it needed to work enough to then update it.

But i haven't seen the grubs2dos screen before, only ever worked with the normal black screen with booting options so its foxed me.

 

Tried putting disk in and booting to see if would auto start but it doesn't.

[RandyL]

Did you ever create the Vista Recovery Environment disks? If you did or could borrow one then you could try the startup repair. I purposely corrupted mine once by starting a Linux install then stopping it. Windows RE startup repair fixed it.

 

There is a site you can download it from but it's not free any more. So if you know someone with Vista use theirs or create it on theirs.

 

An XP disk won't help you.

[Staffiez]

Did you ever create the Vista Recovery Environment disks? If you did or could borrow one then you could try the startup repair. I purposely corrupted mine once by starting a Linux install then stopping it. Windows RE startup repair fixed it.

 

There is a site you can download it from but it's not free any more. So if you know someone with Vista use theirs or create it on theirs.

 

An XP disk won't help you.

 

Thank you for your ideas, We have back ups/restore but they dont run. The laptop wasn't new when we got it so no disks came with it.

I think i'm near the problem, i managed to run scandisk on start up and it says there's a problem.

It's frozen @ CHKDSK stage 4of 5 11% complete 13110 of 175088 files processed.

Doesn't sound to good i guess.

 

I think the best thing would be to format it :( and reload a copy of vista because each time it freezes we have to close it by crashing and i'm sure each time we do that it's making more problems.

[KenB]

Before you go down the road of formatting and reinstalling you may have data / files that need to be retrieved from the drive.

Do you?

 

It may well be possible to get at these ( relatively easily ).

 

================

 

We have back ups/restore but they dont run.

You have restore disks AND a copy of Vista ( full installation ) ?

 

You put the restore disks in the drive - what happens?

Do any DVDs CDs work?