@-janrocks- Just curious of this post you made, There is no professional help needed when dealing with a laptop. The only brick made is if you drop it.
Errrm..If it's an Acer they have the same kind of hidden bios settings partition as the old Compaq deskpro series had. Deleting all the partitions off one of these can be pretty close to terminal for the non-professional to restore. I know from the experience of a friend who did exactly this with an Acer 17" laptop a few weeks ago. The hardest part was finding the files and getting them on a machine that wouldn't boot past "system options not set" I ended up needing a linux pc that would access the drive to put the missing "bios" partition back on with the right files for the hardware. Not easy or nice. I wouldn't want somebody to kill a very expensive piece of hardware without at least informing them of a potential risk. Some laptops aren't what they seem when it comes to re-installing an OS
AH, gotcha... Most "Hidden Bios" are hidden for users protection for the simple fact...they don't want you to mess with the settings since it can alter performance (which I fell is lame, I love full control). there is a tool you can use to "Un-hide the Bios" but I forget where I found it. If need be I can do a search for it and give the link. Just ask.
Yes..what my friend did when he couldn't delete the first partition the XP install disk found was boot a bootable disk with partition magic and deleted the system partition as well.. Nice.. very nice.. Took me 4 hours to find the size of the partition and the files that I needed. Acer don't exactly have the best Tech support. That app would be very useful to me at work.. I'm starting to see a lot of laptops with messed up bios. Thanks
Ok, I found ther link but its not what it used to be, here it is anyways. http://forums.techpowerup.com/archive/index.php/t-2571.html
MORE INFO Fred Langa shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup. Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option Posted by: soxrocker on June 19, 2006 9:03 AM ...See....Paul was right..... Fred Langa shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data and without having to reinstall user software or reformat or otherwise destructively alter the setup. By Fred Langa InformationWeek Jun 19, 2006 12:00 AM Fred LangaIt's one of those software design decisions that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?" The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use. But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. And unlike a traditional full reinstall, this option doesn't leave you with two copies of XP on your hard drive. Instead, you end up with just the original installation, but repaired, refreshed, and ready to go. We've saved this technique for last in our discussion of the various XP repair/rebuild options because the fixes we've previously discussed are like first aid--the things you try first. For instance, see this discussion on removing limitations on XP's Recovery Console, turning it into a more complete repair tool; or this discussion on the Recovery Console's little-known "Rebuild" command that can cure many boot-related problems. (There's also lots more on the Recovery Console here. But when the Recovery Console techniques don't work, and you're facing the prospects of a total reformat/reinstall, stop! Try the no-reformat reinstall technique we're about to illustrate, and you just may get your XP setup running again in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the hassle of a grand mal wipe-and-restore. The First Fork In The Road The no-reformat reinstall operation starts with a normal boot from an XP setup CD. Ideally, to save time, use a setup CD that's been "slipstreamed" to include the SP1 and SP2 patches and upgrades. (Need info on slipstreaming? See "How To Save An Hour (Or More) On XP Installs" and also this third-party site. GO HERE TO READ IT ALL http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText=
Well, these guys said it before I could. After reinstalling Windows, don't forget that you need to a)Hunt for those pesky drivers, b)Install all Windows updates (using IE ONLY! From http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us), and c)Install anti-spyware, firewall, and anti-virus utilities and update them ASAP.
In fact all the garbage you need to run this horrible ram eating monster. Then dump IE as soon as possible to save yourself just so many headaches. Free antivirus http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
Install anti-spyware, firewall, and anti-virus utilities and update them ASAP before updating windows as found out the hard way on a customer's computer that got infection from a virus from ms site. had to do 4 hrs work re-installing windows & other programs but updated anti-virus before doing ms.
