Laptop Boots, but has black screen

[steve10765]

Windows 8
So my mom was on her notebook, an Acer Aspire One725-0687, and dropped it last night. Everything was fine when she was on it this morning, she could search the web etc. Just a little while ago she tried to go on it and it had a black screen. Whenever I turn it off, then back on - the acer bios screen loads fine, once that's done the screen goes black(the screen is still on, just lit black)

I took out the battery and put it back in - it loaded up to windows booting fixer, so I decided just to restart the computer, that didn't work.
I took out that battery again(that windows helper thing doesn't show up unless i keep taking out the battery) and ran windows startup repair. Said there was a problem it couldn't fix.

Did the battery thing again and tried a system restore. didn't work

Did the battery thing again, chose to refresh windows(keeps your files). This partially finished installing. I got through the first part where I input my wifi, and chose my update settings. Then it was "putting the finishing touches on my pc" then turned off.

Turned it on again and it tried automatic repair, but it couldn't repair my pc\

UPDATE: Now It wont make it past the bios screen, it loads, but wont load the windows repair menu, it just stays on the bios screen.

 

[-RockMan-]

Windows 8
So my mom was on her notebook, an Acer Aspire One725-0687, and dropped it last night. Everything was fine when she was on it this morning, she could search the web etc. Just a little while ago she tried to go on it and it had a black screen. Whenever I turn it off, then back on - the acer bios screen loads fine, once that's done the screen goes black(the screen is still on, just lit black)

I took out the battery and put it back in - it loaded up to windows booting fixer, so I decided just to restart the computer, that didn't work.
I took out that battery again(that windows helper thing doesn't show up unless i keep taking out the battery) and ran windows startup repair. Said there was a problem it couldn't fix.

Did the battery thing again and tried a system restore. didn't work

Did the battery thing again, chose to refresh windows(keeps your files). This partially finished installing. I got through the first part where I input my wifi, and chose my update settings. Then it was "putting the finishing touches on my pc" then turned off.

Turned it on again and it tried automatic repair, but it couldn't repair my pc\

UPDATE: Now It wont make it past the bios screen, it loads, but wont load the windows repair menu, it just stays on the bios screen.

Ask your mother how hard the laptop fail, if its hard thud on hard floors.
9 times out of 10 the hard drive will begin to develop errors.
Remove the hard drive and go make a linux live cd.
software.opensuse.org:
Pop the dvd in and hope that dvd drive works fine let it run.
If it makes to the live cd desktop screen, your hard drive has a problem and you'll need a new one.

If it doesn't and it just stays right at bios check the memory sticks.
If you have 2 take one out and see if it will boot on and go to the live cd or hard drive with windows,

Lastly if your laptop screen begins to have problems soon.
Its just best you buy a new Lcd, screen part, inverter and make the repairs.

 

[steve10765]

I am installing windows 8 as we speak, hopefully everything goes ok.

I made a bootable USB with windows 8 installed

I pressed F2 to go into my laptops BIOS, and changed the BIOS to Legacy, instead of the default UFEI settings.
Changed the boot order to my USB first.

The USB loaded, and I was looking at the install screen, before I clicked install, I
"3. Press SHIFT-F10 to bring up console.
4. Type "diskpart"
5. Once inside diskpart type:
-> list disk (find the one you want to convert)
-> select disk 0 (select the one you want from the list)
-> clean (wait an hour or so until its done)
-> quit
6. Continue with install"

And thats how things were fixed, at least I think they are.

 

[carnageX]

If the drive was a hard drive and not a solid state drive, then it's going to be toast. Physical shock to an HDD will damage it physically and cannot be repaired by software commands. Buy a new HDD, reinstall Windows.

The current drive may "seem" to be working, but if it was dropped...it's not going to last long.

You can try to recover files/pics/documents through using a Linux LiveCD like RockMan suggested, though there's no guarantee that you'll actually be able to recover anything.

Of course, if the laptop has an SSD, then we'll need to troubleshoot other areas of the laptop and why it wouldn't be booting. You'd want to double check RAM connections to make sure they didn't come loose.

 

[steve10765]

If the drive was a hard drive and not a solid state drive, then it's going to be toast. Physical shock to an HDD will damage it physically and cannot be repaired by software commands. Buy a new HDD, reinstall Windows.

So i have concluded it was the hard drive. A little piece of it was damaged near the center/beginning of it I assume. I say this because -

Formatted the hard drive so everything was fresh.
Installed windows and it failed right near the end of installation.
Installed windows again and it failed near the beginning - middle of installation
Installed windows again and everything worked fine.

I think I skipped over the bad part of the Hard Drive by perceiving past the damaged point. Everything is up to date and runs better than before due to everything being fresh.


Did you understand what I was saying?
-I will never disk defrag so the computer never reads that part of the hard drive again! Right now the error is somewhere in windows.old and windows.old(1)

 

[carnageX]

It would be a better idea to just replace the HDD because it's just going to further degrade. Better just do it now while you can still backup the data.

Then you can use a Linux LiveCD and copoy one directory at a time in the Windows.old folder. Linux is much more forgiving about navigating around bad sectors and such.

 

[steve10765]

Laptop was having problems today, it def was the HDD. Going to look around for a good 32GB SSD for her, should make things faster, and fix the problems. Might as well take advantage of cyber monday.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

32GB wont get you very far, even 60GB doesn't let you get much more than an OS with all it's updates installed onto it...

 

[steve10765]

32GB wont get you very far, even 60GB doesn't let you get much more than an OS with all it's updates installed onto it...

Been reading around and I am pretty sure I will need a 64GB SSD, 32 is cutting it too close.

Just found this bad boy, http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digi...=1417489047&sr=8-2&keywords=solid+state+drive

Has good ratings, and actually has good performance for the price. 180 read, 133 write (spec page for 120gb model). Much faster than a 5400rpm laptop drive, especially a damaged one...


I am going to go eat some desert and take a shower, and then check back for any objections.
Price limit $50
Must be on Amazon(preferred) or Newegg

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

I would grab it, that is one of the better deals you can get, Newegg is sold out.