Start Up My acer lop top aspire 5100 do not star said to insert a disc,i try with the window vista,but still the problem.

A solution to that is to install Windows Vista Ultimate on top of your old vista installation. Just insert your Vista DVD and restart your computer. And simply follow the instructions for the installation.

You PC note book needs to be reformatted do the following:
1. Restart
2. Press "F2"
3. look for the default bios settings.
4. exit and save
5. restart you notebook PC remember that you must insert the flash drive containing the windows installation since notebook PC doesn't have CD drive.
6. run installation and w8 30 minutes and provide valid cd key for windows.

You can use a torrent site like isoHUNT, to download a copy of the Acer OEM vista disc, this is a little illegal, but if you use your own Windows key from your COA sticker, it should register and activate ok.
You may have to download your drivers seperatly from from ACER.
You will need a torrent client like UTorrent, and the download could take a day or so

You will have to navigate this site; enter 'notebook', 'Aspire', and scroll to 5100; after that, you will have to choose 32 bit or 64 bit. That being said, Acer does not support Windows 7 yet-you can try the Vista drivers; more often than not they will work. One note-I cannot tell just from the info you supplied whether you have the Atheros or Broadcom chip-You should be able to determine that in Device Manager.

http://gd.panam.acer.com/home/

Basically you can download Windows Vista in Microsoft web site, but you have to pay for the license.

The drivers for you computer can be downloaded to acer support website;

http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/webpage.cfm?siteid=7293&areaid=7&website=AcerPanAm.com/us

Acer also have program called Acer Recovery Media Purchase Program

if your machine is under warranty, i believe they sent you the recovery disc but you have to pay for the shipping

Try reinstalling windows. Insert a the windows cd into the drive and restart your computer, than follow instructions.

You can check the BIOS to see if the drive is recognized and even attempt to boot from the drive using a bootable CD to verify it is functional (if using the Windows disc - just verify it reads - DO NOT REINSTALL)

If the drive works use the following to get the drive back in Windows:

Always backup your registry before editing and use care to find exact key!
Start Registry Editor (Start, Run and type in regedit then click)

Find "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" (and "UpperFilters.bak" "LowerFilters.bak", if they exist) value under the following key in the registry, and delete it:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Quit Registry Editor.

Reboot.

NOTE: You might need to reinstall any CD recording apps you have, if they start to not work completely, after doing this.

try a disk cleaner it might be dirty inside and they are very sensative

Hi,
Boot your computer with the recovery CD In the Drive.
You should get the option ** Boot From CD**
highlight click Yes, and overwrite the O/S.
This will re-install windows over your existing version, replacing any corrupt-deleted-missing Files.
mike @ compurepair.

If you are able, when the pc is booting up keep pressing F8, this will take you to safe mode and not allow the graphics driver to run. When in the safe mode options, select either Last known good configuration or start windows in safe mode. Last known good configuration should find the last good system settings, when it reboots. Start windows in safe mode allows you to go into windows using the administartor account, and then you should select system restore and restore back to the day before or just before you updated the graphics driver.