Acer Aspire 5742Z Alt f10 does't Work

[MickAcer]

I have an Aspire 3 yrs od where I got the message "A disk read error occurred. Press ctrl+alt+dl to restart". It had been running really slow and then the next morning it wouldn't boot up and I got this message. So it goes through this on and on like a loop. I am told to use alt f10 when I see the Acer logo at startup, but when I do it, it either ignores my alt f10 or it gives me a blinking cursor and then the disk read error message. Am I up the creek? Is the hard drive toast? I know just enough about this stuff to get by, but thishs me clueless. Any ideas?

 

[mcnumpty23]

if your hard drive is faulty then you wont be able to use alt + f10 to get to the recovery partition

you should have used erecovery to make restore dvds so if you replace the hard drive you use the dvds

 

[MickAcer]

I backed up my laptop periodically onto a portable hard drive...so I am not so worried about losing data except for the last few days. I just don't know how to access the recovery partition if alt f10 isn't working. Th last error message I got said I need a recovery disk which of course I don't think I ever made. So is that the bottom line, I need a recovery cd? I doubt that is something Acer provides as a download. Very frustrating because yesterday alt f10 worked and then it took me to the recovery menu and then I cancelledwhen I saw that I would losemy existing data. I then looked at my backup, sawit had nearly everything and decided I was ok with recovery back to original state and nowit won't even let me get that far. Crazy!

 

[mcnumpty23]

check in the bios and see if your hard drive is recognised

if so

did it ask for a recovery disc?

or a repair disc? this one would be my guess

assuming you are using windows 7

far as i am aware you can legally download the version appropriate to your laptop and use it as a repair disc

since you will have a genuine key on your laptop

http/www.techfleece.com/2012/09/08/how-to-create-a-universal-windows-7-install-disk/

 

[MickAcer]

Actually the last message said I needed a boot disk. When I go to the BIOS, it looks the HD is recognized and lists it first in the boot order.

 

[MickAcer]

Now I can't see to figure out how to get to that error message again. Just goes to either blue screen or the disk read error message. I read some places that these issues are just a problem with communication between the HD and the OS and that the HD is likely good. But not sure what to do. Would a boot disk help? How to create a boot disk? Ready to throw the computer off the roof or use it for target practice.