I'm really hoping someone here will say "Nah, you just need to do this and this
"
I was processing some avies on Reg 4 this morning and my laptop suddenly locked up. I'd just clicked on my IIS icon to check out the site at the time. I thought I'd just leave it for a while to see if it would sort itself out but it didn't. I tried Ctrl+Alt+delete. It didn't work. I turned off the external HDD which is where the files Reg was working on are stored, to try to jolt it back into reality. Nope nothing. I then pressed the start button to turn it off and then restart it. Laptop turned off. Pressed the on button, laptop start, initial Acer screen (with press F2 to enter Setup at the bottom - normal) started, ran a bit longer than normal, then went to a black screen with curser flashing in top left corner - normal, kept flashing - not normal, finally switches to the next screen - blank- normally stays like this for a couple of seconds and then continues to boot up. Stays at blank screen and doesn't go any further.
I unplugged it, removed the battery and let it sit for an hour. Put the battery back in and plugged it back in, restarted, no change.
Now here's the really scary thing. Over the past week or so the laptop has made the occassional "strange" noise, sort of like the DVD drive kicking in. It made those some noises (with I think, a couple of 'clunks" as well. I was in the kitchen and only just heard something I thought sounded a bit strange.) this morning while processing.
Is anyone able to shed some light on what the problem might be? BTW If I press F2 at start up I can enter Setup np.