please don't laugh...

[nailgunner]

I hope she didn't give up. Without sound patronizing, I wanted to compliment her one last time. My computer experience goes back to the 70's when I took programming classes in COBOL, BAL, RPG, etc. I moved on to another profession, but was always involved heavily with computers in a professional and personal capacity.

That said, I never got involved much in formatting drives. And I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, I now think I know less about it than I did a week ago.

It may be because I've moved on in age a bit, but that stuff was starting to look like Latin.

But hang in there if you are so inclined.

 

[Dave76]

Hope to hear if she got it working or even if she didn't.

 

[mypcbroke]

Sorry, it's been a while since I checked in. I've just been following some steps greg suggested about imaging and it's taking more time and a few more tries than expected. I'm nothing if not subborn. I WILL figure this out if its the last thing I do.
I'm still going at it, but I'll update if this works.

Thanks for all the help

 

[kodi]

Welcome back, we were beginning to wonder if you had given up.
Good to see that you are determined to fix this computer, as long as you continue to post we will be here to help.

 

[mypcbroke]

After one 2003 falling apart at the seams XP Dell, Windows image backup, Paragon Backup & Recovery, external HD, and a frozen bag of peas later, this where I'm at: Windows Home Premium is in my pc (somewhere) but I haven't booted just yet.

I've been running "repair startup" a few dozen times but I still get the "A disk read error occurred," "No bootable device," or "BOOTMGR is missing" error.

Following some knowledgable advice, I created a partition on my old XP Dell and installed Windows 7. Annoyingly enough, it installed and booted perfectly on that machine. The laptop's condition leaves much to be desired and has a tendency to overheat and shutdown -and that's where my frozen bag of peas came in. It successfully backed up the laptop image on my external HD.

I then copied it to my Acer via Windows image backup and Paragon Backup & Recovery. I have triple checked that the partition with Windows 7 is "active" and every few "repair startup" tries I do have the CD repairing and restarting.
I have attempted all steps through IDE and AHCI (because I wasn't sure which was the one to use). Right now, Windows 7 is installed in AHCI and repairing away.


I have also previously tried this in command prompt:

• bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
• c:
• cd boot
• attrib bcd -s -h -r
• ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
• bootrec /RebuildBcd

But no juice. Gah, not sure what I'm doing wrong...

 

[zzz2496]

Oh my god... You are officially "Skilled" !!! By the way, in my book... If you did the install normally on another computer and the installed OS boots up normally, you should now look at the "devil" laptop that gives you all this grieve a hard long devastating look, the "you are dead to me" look (quoted from "How I met your mother").

zzz2496

Edit: I forgot one thing... I have suspicion on your HDD/storage controller for a while, your newest post you said about the laptop has a tendency to overheat and shutdown. This incident(s) can lead to catastrophic hardware failure, and I hope now isn't the case... but it does lead me to believe that it's a hardware failure (at least I suspect your HDD/storage controller is failing).

 

[Lordbob75]

At this point, it might be worth it to go see if you can pick up a new HDD. Make sure to ask if you can return it if it doesn't fix it.
I am guessing either bad cable, bad HDD, or bad mobo.

It might be worth it to just take it to a tech shop and ask whats wrong too.

Nice job keeping up, following advice, and posting back! Lets get this damn thing fixed already.

~Lordbob

 

[si8mon]

I created a partition on my old XP Dell and installed Windows 7. The laptop's condition leaves much to be desired and has a tendency to overheat and shutdown -and that's where my frozen bag of peas came in.

I had a smiler problem with my (2 years old) laptop. Dust had built up in the computer and more impotently in the fan, so the laptop was getting no ventilation. This caused my laptop to regularly get hot and often shutdown after only an hour in use. So I went to my local office supplies shop and got a can of compressed air (for under $10) and used it to clean all the dust out of my laptop.

After I did that, my laptop ran perfectly cool and never overheated. So I would suggest opening the back off your laptop and see if there is a lot of dust inside, if there is, go and get a can of compressed air and spray it all out. Once completing that, the laptop should work fine.

 

[gregrocker]

Let's try manually to write the MBR to Win7 partition.

boot the 7 dvd, press Shft F10 at first screen to open command prompt, type:

Diskpart
lis vol
(get the Win7 drive letter - it might be different from PW or WinRE)
exit

Then type

bootsect /nt60 C: (replace C with whatever the 7 drive letter is)

press enter

If Win7 doesn't start now, or attempt to start but stalls at Starting Windows color orbs screen, boot back into DVD Command line to type:

bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /fixmbr

If Win7 doesn't start now, try running Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots again.

If Win7 attempts to Start but stalls at Starting Windows color orbs, it needs to be adjusted to the new Hardware using Paragon Adpative Restore CD to Adjust Hardware.

 

[Dave76]

If the MBR repair doesn't get your laptop booting into Win7.

Can you give us some more information on your old Dell laptop?
Details on the HDD so we can see if it's possible to install the Dell laptop's HDD in your Acer laptop to determine if this may be a HDD issue.

 

[mypcbroke]

I tried all options greg mentioned above ^ and some I googled but I continue to get the error:
A disk read error occrred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

or

No bootable device --insert boot disk and press any key
(this shows up when the Windows DVD isn't in)

As to the overheat, that's my old Dell not my Acer. Thanks for the advice though

Dave,
(answering a question from a few pages ago) I checked my warranty with Western Digital and they told me I have no limited warranty, and that I would have to contact Acer

As to my old Dell, it's an Inspiron 5100.

 

[Dave76]

Too bad about the warranty, I would think WD would stand behind there product even if an OEM computer.

Can you download SIW-System Information for Windows, and go to 'Hardware - Storage Devices' and post a snip of the HDD info?

This info should tell us if you can put the Dell laptop HDD in the Acer and see if it will boot from the different HDD.
This will confirm if it is a HDD issue.

Since you got the Acer have you updated any drivers or the BIOS?


The dust cleaning advice mentioned previously will probably solve the Dell Inspiron 5100 overheating issue.

For future reference, if the HDD is compatible, your Dell Inspiron 5100 owner's Manual.
Page 106, at the bottom, tells you how to remove the HDD.

 

[mypcbroke]

Here's the snip Dave

 

[mypcbroke]

O_O OMG.
I don't know if I undid everything or did something right, but I switched from AHCI to IDE and my start up hung at "starting windows" and the flame animation didn't start. Then it went to "Windows is loading files..."
To clarify: the DVD is not in.

Is this false hope?

 

[zzz2496]

AHCI/IDE is the method of accessing your HDD. DO NOT CHANGE IT once you installed your Windows, it WILL HUNG. Simply change it back to IDE will solve the start up problem.

zzz2496

 

[Dave76]

Your Dell HDD is PATA, your Acer HDD should be SATA.
The PATA HDD will not connect to your SATA Acer.


When your BIOS is set to AHCI the installation will load drivers for AHCI, which are different than the drivers for IDE.
There are ways to change this with the OS installed, usually requires a registry change.

But, this is interesting that it is loading files...

By all means, let it continue.

Let us know the result.

 

[Joshatdot]

SHEESH...28 pages of trouble shooting and errors.

"Windows is loading files..." Did anything happen?

Is there a CIS Lab or Computer Lab Tech at the College? When I went back to school taking the CIS course (Computer Information Systems) everyone there had to tear down a PC (everything out of the case) and put it back together and install Windows on it. We even offered upgrade/repair services to other students at school.

If there is such a class/lab at your school ... take it there. They should have knowledgeable students there to help fix your situation, and quite possibly have spare 2.5" SATA HDDs to swap with yours.

 

[gregrocker]

O_O OMG.
I don't know if I undid everything or did something right, but I switched from AHCI to IDE and my start up hung at "starting windows" and the flame animation didn't start. Then it went to "Windows is loading files..."
To clarify: the DVD is not in.

Is this false hope?

What did it do next?

If it hangs on the Starting Windows color flames animation then you need to run Paragon Adaptive Restore CD since you changed hardware when you imaged Win7 from your Dell to your Acer. Win7 will not always start up right away on new hardware, but needs to have its drivers removed and some other adjustments which PAR CD does.

Try the Mark Active + Startup Repair x3 with SATA set to IDE now. The SATA controller should match the setting on the Dell. If it continues hanging at Starting Windows animation then let me know and I'll loan you my PAR CD.

 

[Joshatdot]

Sooo, what's going on mypcbroke?

 

[Shing01]

same problem - 0x80FE0000

Hi guys, i want to bump this thread because i have the same problem.
"It was going pretty well -it got passed 3 check marks. Then it suddenly stopped I received the error code:
Windows could not set the offline locale information. Error Code: 0x80FE0000"
Excatly this. I bought my new PC yesterday, but i cant install Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 or Xp SP3 because of this error. I did read the whole topic, too bad "mypcbroke" stoped to response. So, my PC:
Motherboard: Asus M5A97
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965
Patriot Patriot 4GB 1333Mhz (single RAM)
PSU: Hipro HPE-450W
Video card: Ati Radeon HD6870
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST320DM000 (320GB)
I updated my Bios (uefi or whatever) to the newest version, tried to switch from AHCI mod to IDE.
Sometimes i got BSOD (with different erros) and once i installed the Win7 successfully. (seriously, wtf). But after PC restart the boot stoped before the Win7 loading screen. This time i tried XP, but failed too.
What to do? Maybe HDD is bad?
//sorry for english mistakes