International Warranty - Laptop Issues

ms_london

Hi.

I bought an Acer Laptop in New Zealand at the end of January 2008. I will call Acer on Monday but I suspect the warranty will only be valid in NZ (I am now back in the UK) which makes me furious!

When I start the laptop it comes up with a message "Installing updates 3 of 3" with the "egg timer" like symbol loading, it does this for a while, shuts itself down, and restarts going straight back to the same page. It keeps doing this and I have never seen anything other than this screen every time I have switched it on & hoping it would have magically fixed itself.

I would lose a few pictures and music, (why did I never back it up?) if I was to lose anything, I just didn't expect to have issues with it so soon since it is only 7/8 months old.

I would really appreciate any advice you can offer & will post back if Acer tell me anything different, but I dont expect them to be helpful.

Thank you

ms_london

Thank you loaner, I appreciate your advice.

I do not have a windows CD for some reason, I would have kept it if I had, unless it has gotten lost in transit.

Will print out your advice and give to a friend who is looking at it. It has taught me a lesson to back up anyway, even if I only have minimal documents on there - hopefully it is just a software issue like you say.

Thank you :0)

ms_london

Hi again.

I tried safe mode but no such luck, but thats where my IT knowledge ends. Will report back but I appreciate your advice, hope it is as simple!

ms_london

Can anyone help??? xx

crumpster

Hi there,

Don't know if you're still having problems as this is quite an old thread, but here's a couple of ideas that might help:

Firstly, Windows Restore, you say in one of your posts above that Safe Mode isn't working. How far does it get when you try it? If it gets to the desktop it might be possible to run the Restore wizard and roll the laptop back to when it was working.

Use a boot CD such as the Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows to boot the laptop from a CD version of Windows. This includes lots of tools that might be able to help fix the problem, or allow you to plug in a USB stick/USB hard disk and get your data off. This isn't a ready downloadable CD image unfortunately, it takes some work to get it running, but I use a version of this CD at work, so could give help if required.

The other thing to try (drastic) would be to take the hard disk out of the laptop and put it in an external USB drive caddy. You could then plug it into another computer to get the data off.

The last one would still mean the laptop would need fixing, but at least the data would be ok.

HTH

Best Regards,
Graham