Acer Aspire M5-582PT will not boot

[Keithm26]

Hello all,

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire M5 for my wife to do school work with. It was working fine until yesterday when she powered it on. After the splash screen it goes to a black screen only showing the cursor and does nothing more. It is my understanding this will require a Windows 8 ISO to be placed on a USB drive after which I will need to boot from USB. I've hit f2 and enabled f12 during splash. Would anyone be able to help me to understand how to make a Win8 ISO and also what format the USB drive needs to be? I have a Windows 8 disc, however the M5 has no optical drive. I'll be using my desktop and will place the disc in the optical drive and attempt to create an ISO then move to the flash drive. Would Rufus be a good option for creating a bootable USB drive for Windows 8? Thanks in advance!

Keith

 

[Prostar Computer]

Before you go about reloading Windows 8, make sure you check your BIOS boot settings. The hard drive should show up first in the boot options, followed by anything else (cd drive, usb drives, etc.) If it does not show up first, make it the priority (top of the list). If it does not show up at all, then reloading Windows 8 won't be doable.

To put Windows 8 on your USB drive, you will need this (skip to "here's how"): http/pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/install-windows-8-usb.htm

I hope that helps.

 

[Keithm26]

I tried doing it before this way but got the "PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, Check Cable" error. Any further assistance? I used WinUSB maker tool to make the bootable USB flash drive. It does show in bios and I moved it up to number one. I still get this error.

 

[Prostar Computer]

I tried doing it before this way but got the "PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, Check Cable" error. Any further assistance? I used WinUSB maker tool to make the bootable USB flash drive. It does show in bios and I moved it up to number one. I still get this error.

It's trying to boot from the network. Are you saving the settings when you exit BIOS and restart?

 

[Keithm26]

Ok I got it to boot from USB. Do I need to do a clean install or is there a way around that?

 

[Prostar Computer]

You can try a repair using the Windows installer. If the laptop has a recovery partition, it would be better if you could boot from that and do a factory recovery. But if neither of those work for you, then go ahead and format it and install Windows 8.

 

[Keithm26]

Wanted to do a clean install but it said of the main drive "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style" I'm confused, and also to do a repair install how would I do that?

 

[Prostar Computer]

Is your BIOS in CSM/Legacy BIOS? You want a GPT disk if it's a UEFI system. If it's set to legacy BIOS or CSM, or "UEFI Boot: disabled", change it back to UEFI and try again. Legacy BIOS/CSM does not support GPT and that would lead to that message (hopefully all that did not confuse you more).

Windows 7 on the other hand might prompt you to change it to a MBR disk.

The repair option should be somewhere in the Windows installer, though I can't recall how to access it with a Windows 8 disc/ISO.

 

[Keithm26]

If I change back to UEFI then the USB drive does not show as an option for boot. When it boots it says "Preparing automatic repair" then it diagnoses and is unable to fix repair the issue. It cannot fix the issue, so I go to advanced options, troubleshoot then advanced options. However the only options there are system restore, system image recovery, automatic repair, command prompt, UEFI firmware settings, and startup settings. There is no option to fresh install? Ugggghh

 

[Keithm26]

When on UEFI it will not boot from USB. It boots from HDD and does the automatic repair each turn, then it can't fix it so I go to advanced options but there is no option there for an instal. Only a restore, and I have no restore point. It does the automatic repair each time but gives me no option to boot from the flash drive. It then boots from the HDD and loops, then when I select advanced options there is no option to install windows. It then prompts me to insert the disc or media device. The flash drive is inserted, but it's not booting from it. I also formatted the main drive so it detects no windows installation. So how is it going from the HDD into automatic repair and then giving me no option to do a clean install? This is a headache for sure.

 

[Keithm26]

Made a Win8 recovery drive on other flash drive. Set it to Legacy BIOS. However, I had deleted the partition on the HDD. So it was going to repair, but then could not find any partition. Looks like I made a mistake. So what do I do from here..I'm lost.

 

[Prostar Computer]

Hey, we were out for the weekend. Yeah, if you're using UEFI, it should be GPT. If you're not in UEFI, then it needs to be MBR. In UEFI, you need to disable Secure Boot to boot from the flash drive, then make sure it's the boot priority (or just access the quick boot menu and select it).

So basically, since you don't have the partition now, try this:

1. Revert back to UEFI; save and exit
2. Disable Secure Boot; save and exit
3. Insert your USB drive with the Windows 8 ISO and try to boot from it; you can either make it the first boot option in UEFI setup, or if you have a "quick boot" hotkey, press it at startup until the menu shows up, then select your USB drive.

Attempt your Windows install if it boots from the drive. If the drive is still GPT, it should work.