I have an Acer 3620 series laptop
Model No: MS2180
Aspire 3624WXCI

I power it on and goes through POST. It takes a long time for it to finish, when it finally does it makes a long, loud, and continuous beep noise and never boots from a disc (cd rom or hdd). I can make it POST quicker by pressing escape key twice during the POST and then it quickly goes on to make the loud noise. HOWEVER, I can make it boot from disc or from hdd by pressing F12 and going into boot options and then pressing escape, then it will successfully boot into windows or from cd-rom.
Why is that? How can I fix it.


Here's a pic of the POST-------------------------
Before I press escape key:
[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/j60sx4.jpg[/img]

After i press escape key twice:
[img]http://i40.tinypic.com/16m225z.jpg[/img]

Here's a video explaining what I just wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqJNRzNNu8w

thanks in advance for any help :)

Have you checked the boot order?

Have you checked the boot order?

of course I have, you can see the boot order in the video, i've tried changing it to cd-rom first, and then hdd first, something in its POST check is causing it to not boot and make that loud beep

However, it doesnt do it when i go into boot menu first and then escape out of it, I wonder why...

Have you tried fixing XP using the XP CD?

Have you tried counting the beeps, or are they continous?

I don't think its a problem with xp or xp booting, the problem occurs before it goes into the boot sequence during POST

I made a video, watch it. I also wrote earlier that yes its a long continuous beep.

Thanks

You said in the video that the POST says 'fixed disk 0' That makes it sound like you might have a bad sector on your hdd. Have you tried booting it with a different drive?

yes, that still doesn't make the noise go away
I think it just may mean that the disc is non moving.

You said in the video that the POST says 'fixed disk 0' That makes it sound like you might have a bad sector on your hdd. Have you tried booting it with a different drive?

I believe the term 'fixed disk' means hard disk. fixed being in a fixed location.

Have you tried restoring the defaults in BIOS.

I believe the term 'fixed disk' means hard disk. fixed being in a fixed location.

Have you tried restoring the defaults in BIOS.

You're probably right with the fixed disk thing.
Usually laptops have a reset button at the bottom.
Can you enter the bios, or does it just do the continuous beep every time?

*woops

I would suggest try check the keyboard if there is any stuck key(s).

You may also try remove all removable devices like DVD, external KB/MS, PC cards, AC adapter, battery..etc.
Then holding down the power button over 15 seconds, this will discharge and reset the laptop.

Next is connect the AC adapter only, and power on the laptop, if same problem, you can try use just 1 RAM(if there is more than 1 ram on your laptop), and use each ram on each different ram slot to boot the laptop.

No idea how old your laptop is, for some laptop with semi faulty capacitor on the mobo may have the similar problem as well.

If you have a known good HDD, try use on your laptop and see if you can install XP, if so, the problem is the HDD.
Hope this helps!
Bill

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