Can't change BIOS in Acer laptop (inop keyboard and touchpad). Please Help!

[seahog]

I strongly suspect that static electricity zapped our Acer TimelineX 4820T-6645 WIN7 laptop which was working perfectly until the keyboard and touchpad were cleaned. The keyboard AND touchpad no longer work. I can use a wired (and wireless) USB keyboard to operate the F2 key to access the BIOS, but none of the USB keyboard keys work to change the BIOS settings. During bootup I can select "safe mode" or three other modes, but when a mode is selected, a cotinuous beep starts which is accompanied by a recurring clicking sound, and the HDD light flashes with every audible click. The screen displays "loading windows files" but nothing further happens to indicate progress in loading windows. Please guide me in repairing this otherwise great laptop.

 

[Jim_L9]

You should be able to change the laptop keyboard fairly easily. The touchpad is likely more involved. make sure that nothing else has failed and then it might be worth the effort and expense to replace the keyboard and touchpad.

 

[Guest]

Remove your keyboard and disconnect the cable for the touchpad. Perhaps the faulty hardware is causing problems with your other input devices.


How do you know the touchpad is inoperable considering you cannot boot?

 

[seahog]

Remove your keyboard and disconnect the cable for the touchpad. Perhaps the faulty hardware is causing problems with your other input devices.

How do you know the touchpad is inoperable considering you cannot boot?

26DEC13, 2132 RYAN G: I took your advice and disconnected the Acer keyboard and installed the wired USB keyboard. The continuous beep and clicking stopped! Wow. I have not reinstalled the "bad" original keyboard since.
The laptop was then able to go farther in the boot process and I discovered that the original touchpad appears to be fully functional.
The BIOS is now fully accessible as well.
WIN7 posted during boot attempts the following: "Setup is starting services." "WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Click okay to restart, then restart the installation."
Utilizing the F8 key during boot and the various options, WIN7 advised that "the computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Restart the installation."
I first tried to reboot from C: without success, then with my four recovery DVDs that I made the day I bought the laptop. I was able to start The recovery process which took nearly two hours. However, I'm getting the exact same statements that I just described.
Please advise me Ryan and Tom's Hardware gentlemen.

 

[Guest]

Remove your keyboard and disconnect the cable for the touchpad. Perhaps the faulty hardware is causing problems with your other input devices.

How do you know the touchpad is inoperable considering you cannot boot?

26DEC13, 2132 RYAN G: I took your advice and disconnected the Acer keyboard and installed the wired USB keyboard. The continuous beep and clicking stopped! Wow. I have not reinstalled the "bad" original keyboard since.
The laptop was then able to go farther in the boot process and I discovered that the original touchpad appears to be fully functional.
The BIOS is now fully accessible as well.
WIN7 posted during boot attempts the following: "Setup is starting services." "WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Click okay to restart, then restart the installation."
Utilizing the F8 key during boot and the various options, WIN7 advised that "the computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Restart the installation."
I first tried to reboot from C: without success, then with my four recovery DVDs that I made the day I bought the laptop. I was able to start The recovery process which took nearly two hours. However, I'm getting the exact same statements that I just described.
Please advise me Ryan and Tom's Hardware gentlemen.

Sounds like a possibly faulty hard drive. I'm honestly not quite sure. Do you know what a live CD is? If it's not too difficult for you, try running a linux live CD and see if the computer at least will run. This will tell you that the motherboard and other computer parts aren't damaged. I'd use Damn Small Linux, since it's only 50 mb. I don't think your computer can boot from USB, so you'll need to burn it to a CD.

Download this file:
http/distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/current/current.iso

And follow these instructions to burn it to a CD-R:
http/www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/burning_a_bootable_cd.html#In_Windows

Then, put that CD-R in the broken laptop and try booting from it. If you can boot and run Damn Small Linux, then I'd say your hard-drive is causing the problems. It could be that the hard drive is just corrupted and needs to be reformatted... I can't say without knowing exactly what kind of restore CD you are using on it. If the restore CD wipes the drive and puts a copy of what it was when you got the computer on, then it's probably faulty. If the restore CD leaves the old operating system intact, then it may just need to be wiped completely and start fresh.

 

[seahog]

Remove your keyboard and disconnect the cable for the touchpad. Perhaps the faulty hardware is causing problems with your other input devices.

How do you know the touchpad is inoperable considering you cannot boot?

26DEC13, 2132 RYAN G: I took your advice and disconnected the Acer keyboard and installed the wired USB keyboard. The continuous beep and clicking stopped! Wow. I have not reinstalled the "bad" original keyboard since.
The laptop was then able to go farther in the boot process and I discovered that the original touchpad appears to be fully functional.
The BIOS is now fully accessible as well.
WIN7 posted during boot attempts the following: "Setup is starting services." "WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Click okay to restart, then restart the installation."
Utilizing the F8 key during boot and the various options, WIN7 advised that "the computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Restart the installation."
I first tried to reboot from C: without success, then with my four recovery DVDs that I made the day I bought the laptop. I was able to start The recovery process which took nearly two hours. However, I'm getting the exact same statements that I just described.
Please advise me Ryan and Tom's Hardware gentlemen.

Sounds like a possibly faulty hard drive. I'm honestly not quite sure. Do you know what a live CD is? If it's not too difficult for you, try running a linux live CD and see if the computer at least will run. This will tell you that the motherboard and other computer parts aren't damaged. I'd use Damn Small Linux, since it's only 50 mb. I don't think your computer can boot from USB, so you'll need to burn it to a CD.

Download this file:
http/distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/current/current.iso

And follow these instructions to burn it to a CD-R:
http/www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/burning_a_bootable_cd.html#In_Windows

Then, put that CD-R in the broken laptop and try booting from it. If you can boot and run Damn Small Linux, then I'd say your hard-drive is causing the problems. It could be that the hard drive is just corrupted and needs to be reformatted... I can't say without knowing exactly what kind of restore CD you are using on it. If the restore CD wipes the drive and puts a copy of what it was when you got the computer on, then it's probably faulty. If the restore CD leaves the old operating system intact, then it may just need to be wiped completely and start fresh.

.

02JAN2014, 8PM
RYAN:
The four CDs I used to reload WIN7 are the four recovery CDs that the ACER laptop instructed me to create when I turned on the laptop for the first time. I used them to reload WIN7 TWICE which took 2 hours each time. The entire 2 hour recovery process appeared to go perfectly. BUT, No change in operation occurred when the recovery was completed. WIN7 still does not load and I still get the same onscreen notification: "The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. WIN7 installation cannot proceed. Restart the installation." I tried every bootup option in the "safe mode" mode, but no change.

I made the Damn Small Linux CD as you suggested. But the only file listed on the CD is "current.iso". Is that as expected? I tried booting the broken laptop with this CD, but nothing happened. I installed Damn Small Linux on a USB flash stick and tried booting it with that - no success.

I installed a new OEM Acer keyboard today and I now seem to have full keyboard operation - at least using the few keys that I used in BIOS and in the "safe mode" options. The touchpad worked okay during the two hour recovery process.

The Bottom line - The current problem with my laptop is as follows: I cannot get WIN7 to fully load and operate my laptop. I tried twice to repair my laptop with my four Acer "recovery CDs" - but, no change in operation occurred. Trying to boot with a "Damn Small Linux" on a CD does nothing. This problem occurred after a static electricity incident with the laptop keyboard.
Please help.
Ryan: Thanks for all your help and time in trying to get my laptop repaired. I will start a new thread for this problem.

 

[Guest]

The iso file is a CD image. You don't burn the actual file to the CD. I don't know quite how to explain it, but it's sort of like directions for the computer telling it what to burn to the CD. You need a software that burns .iso images. Part of the iso is like a zip file with a bunch of files inside of it, but part of it also contains special instructions for your computer for where to physically put those files on the CD.

If you look at the directions I posted earlier, they list some free software that will burn ISO images.

 

[RocketFlamingo]

You need a program like "Image Master" to change your .iso to an .exe. You can't boot from an .iso or install from an .iso