Acer aspire 5560g hangs on restart

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siggyinbrizzy

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Sep 2, 2012
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I have an Acer Aspire 5560G Laptop AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M processor. I had to re-install Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit from a genuine Windows 7 OEM disc because the previous owner of the laptop had deleted the hidden recovery partition. After the install I downloaded all the necessary drivers from the Acer website including the latest Bios. The problem I am having is that the laptop freezes on restarts. I have to hold down the power button to shut the computer down and then restart every time after installing updates or software that requires a restart.
I have contacted Acer support with the problem and their answer was to send the laptop in for service and re-imaging of the hidden partition at a cost of $109.00. Apparently, Acer is well aware of this problem and with the only solution being to reimage the hidden partition. I find that hard to believe since the image should be the same as Windows 7 OEM version with all the necessary drivers. There must be some other problem to cause the freezing. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
 
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HermanGyula

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Sep 5, 2012
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Hi!

I have the same notebook and I had the same problem, but I managed to solve it.

The Microsoft Windows operating system offers 2 architectures for partitioning disk drives into usable areas to store data. The 2 approaches differ with how they track the mapping of physical disk sectors to logical block numbers. The original method of partitioning disks is referred to as MBR (Master Boot Record) which was developed during the 1980’s. Although widely accepted, this scheme has many shortcomings including partitions being limited to 2TB (terabytes) in size.
As disk capacity has increased to over a terabyte, a new partition architecture developed in the late 1990’s called GPT (GUID Partition Table) was created to accommodate the larger partition sizes. In addition to size, GPT disks also offer more partitions and greater resilience to corruption.

(More: http://www.petri.co.il/gpt-vs-mbr-based-disks.htm)

The problem is, that the ACER Aspire 5560G model somehow (don't ask how {maybe BIOS related?}) can't shut down properly (freeze) when the OS is installed in a GPT partition style. Because of the 5560G is a UEFI/EFI based system, Windows can only be installed to GPT disk. If you manually convert the drive to MBR during installation (Shift + 10), it won't work, because the Windows installer will say: "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

The solution is a little bit weird. (don't ask why)
If you DON'T press a key during the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." message when you boot, the Windows installer will install the OS in MBR partition style and the notebook will work without any problem. :)

http://0.tqn.com/d/pcsupport/1/0/b/4/-/-/windows-7-startup-repair-1.jpg

If you already have an OS on the HDD/SSD, the Win7 installer won't boot (even, when you set the CD/DVD drive first in the boot sequence in the BIOS) because you doesn't pressed a key during the message (see picture above), so the installed OS will load. You have to run the installer as normal (press a key during the message) and when you reach the part where you can partition / delete / format the drive, press delete on every partition you have. You should see something like this (unallocated space):

http://0.tqn.com/d/pcsupport/1/0/d/5/-/-/windows-7-install-10.jpg

Then quit from the installer (its possible that the system will freeze during reboot) and re-run the Win7 installer with the above described "don't press anything during the message" method. :)

I hope it helped and will work for you.

DH
 
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asdfgdhaeghsrtertw

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Nov 25, 2014
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Just wanted to say this WORKED for me. Thank you!!!
 

u00959901

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Oct 9, 2015
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On a Acer 5560 I had the same problem. Then it updated to Windows 10 then all broke loose. This morning was unable to start the computer, could not get boot from another device noR F2 cMOS, removed the hard drive then was able to do F12 or F2. I then changed the setting of ACHI to idle, reinstalled windows 7 Ultimate, and now I am able to reboot or shut down the computer. I had a similar problem on a Gebyte motherboard but in that cMOS it gave a better info in there the EFI or UEFI or GPT stuff for hard drives larger then 2TB. I only build a computer with a OS hard drive and add any others via a eSATA card and a 4 drive device external for a desktop computer. Laptops you do not need a 4TB hard drive in the unit and if you have a eSATA external port, which they want to get rid of, you can connect via a larger drive external to the laptop, and eSATA the throughput is the same as a hard drive connected via the motherboard. Me the answer on the reboot or shut down is do not install windows on a hard drive larger then 2TB and use the MBR instead of the EFI, UEFI or GRT. I have a 4TB hard connected via a eSATA on a desktop and it wrote the EFI, UEFI or ACHI to it so you see all 4TB available. No need to have it on your OS disk.
 

Ti____

Estimable
Jan 6, 2016
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Hi there. Recently out of nowhere I started experiencing restart problems and even shut down. It all started after the updates that are routine on my laptop. The laptop is new, under a year old, I've only used it a handful of times for emails and word docs. I'm not sure what the problem is. Spoek to 2 techs who knew squat about Acer equipment, both said send it in at your dime (no warranty on S&H) and we will restore it. What? Restore rather than find out what the problem is? Never heard anyone laptop or computer store say that. I'm calling the warranty company to see what they can do or replace it...I hope you find out what the problem is for cheaper.
 

Corona688

Commendable
Jun 3, 2016
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1,520
This definitely helped me, and I hope I can take the mystery out of it.

When the Windows 7 CD boots, it actually boots twice - first in UEFI mode with the fancy font, but skips it without a keypress. Then the CD boots again, this time in BIOS mode with VGA font, and goes into the Windows 7 installer.

P.S. If your laptop refuses to wait for the F2 key but won't boot a CD, you aren't screwed. Worst case you can turn it off, remove the battery, and finally remove the hard drive to render it unbootable -- turn it on without a hard drive and it will let you into BIOS settings, where you can set it to boot the CD first.

Then turn it off, unplug it, and add the hard drive back in, and you will be able to boot to CD when necessary but boot to hard drive when the cd drive is empty.
 
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