Acer will not boot

[Brian]

Help!

I have looked all over this site, and nothing seems to help my situation.

I have an Acer Aspire desktop, model M1640 which will not boot up past the microsoft icon with the bar under it. I have tried launching in safe mode, did nothing. I tried launching using "the last known successfull configuration" Also, nothing. I did get a blue screen once which said Windows has encountered a problem and shutdown to prevent damage to your computer.

It also displayed the following message:

BAD_POOL_HEADER.....also a long message that says:

0X00000019 (0X00000070,0X8121EA08,0X8121EA18,0X08020005)

 

Sticker says Motherboard type MCP73 . This is all the info I can think of. I was planning maybe next to try using a bootable disk to access recovery mode in Windows. I sure hope someone can help! Thanks....:confused:

Edited August 31, 2010 by PseFrank

[PseFrank]

Hi Brian, welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. I don't have any quick fixes to offer you, just a couple of questions that might help someone here to work out what your problem is.

 

Are you hearing any beep codes when you first turn on your computer. If so, how many beeps do you hear?

 

Are you familier with the inside of your PC case. If you are, you could try resetting your RAM, although I don't personally think that is the problem.

 

Do you have the operating system disk?

[DSTM]

A pool header issue is a problem with Windows memory allocation. Device

driver issues are most common.

[Brian]

I do not have a disk, it came pre-loaded. I heard only one beep when I fired it up. I tried re-setting my ram and nothing happend. I heard that I'm supposed to push alt and f10 as it's loading and that will take me to a page where I can reset to factory settings. I see a page called cmos setup with many options but nothing that says anything about restoring factory settings.

[PseFrank]

One beep from your PC is good Brian...thats all you want to hear. I'm not sure about your PC...but try pressing just F10 by its self when booting..and see if that brings up any more options.

[Brian]

I have contacted Acer and am prepared to order a recovery disk, but I am woried that if I have a device driver problem, a disk won't do me any good. Is there a way to determine if I have a hardware problem?

The blue screen messsage was "BAD_POOL_HEADER"

[PseFrank]

I assume that you tried F10 on its own Brian.

 

I think I'm correct in saying that if you get a recovery disk from Acer, that it will have generic drivers on the disk. This would enable you to at least successfully boot your computer, and then you could go online and update the drivers.

 

If this is incorrect, someone please step in and advise...

[PseFrank]

I've changed the title of your thread Brian. As Just "Brian" does not give anyone who is skipping through the threads any idea as to what your problem might be.

[BeeCeeBee]

If this is incorrect, someone please step in and advise...

It is not incorrect but IF (and IF is a very big word here) they actually send you the disc for your model specifically and IF you have not changed any of the hardware you should get the specific drivers for the hardware installed when the machine was built.

 

If the disc is more "Acer Universal" then the generic drivers should get you going. Hopefully you will get the right disc from Acer and driver updates should be unnecessary unless something is not working.

[Armageddon]

Hi Brian to launch Acer Erecovery console on a Acer desktop you need to press ALT + f10 at boot to launch Acer's erecovery suite

 

Hope this helps

 

Dave

[Brian]

Thanks Dave, but I have tried that a million times and never get to the eRecovery part...it just wants to go to a page that says CMOS setup utility which doesn't mention recovery at all. I have pushed delete during boot up and gotten to a boot menu which also doesn't mention recovery.

[RandyL]

I got this from the Acer support.

 

How to recovery your system from bootup

1. Locate the Alt key, to the left of the space bar, and F10, on the top row of keys.
   
2. Power the system on.
   
3. When the system is powered on, tap the Alt and F10 keys together at the same time when the Acer splash screen appears.
   It should state "Please wait a moment..." with the Acer logo in the upper left hand corner.
   
4. At the eRecovery Management menu it will ask you how to restore.
   
5. Click on the restore option you would like to use.
   

[Brian]

I have since gotten to the "blue screen of death" At least this is what Acer calls it! Among all the information here was that a critical system driver is missing or corrupt. It then said the following....

FILE\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SISRAID 4 SYS STATUS 0XC000098

 

A totally different screen I was able to get to said "EDIT BOOT OPTIONS FOR WINDOWS SETUP" at the top, followed by: PATH\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\BOOT\WINLOAD.EXE

 

This is followed by 5 lines of code within brackets with a blinking cursor at the end looking like it's waiting for something to be entered. Not knowing what, I pushed enter and the screen just went blank. I recorded the 5 lines of code if anyone is interested, but I have ordered the Acer recovery disk and will wait for that and hope I can a least get into Windows to restore factory settings or re-load drivers.