dag nabbit now my son's laptop is being a pain!

[dotty.]

Could someone diagnose this for me please? He says that for the last 12 hours, the only screen he can get even with switching on in any of the safe modes is a windows screen with the message written in white in the middle that says:
Configuring update stage 3 of 3 0% complete
Do Not turn off your computer

and every few minutes windows shuts down and re-boots.

I've tried using safe mode myself and it comes straight back on to that screen!

Odd one?

[dotty.]

Chuck!, over here!!!

[dotty.]

nope, as soon as safe mode goes ahead it goes straight to that same screen, I've just been on the microsoft support site and alot of people seem to have had the same issue but can't see an answer there yet,

[ChuckFickens]

If you can't even get into safe mode then the only option really is to run a system restore and select repair installation when you get the chance.

If the laptop came with restore disks then the laptop needs to be booted from them, if it didn't come with disk then it will probably have a recovery partition that you initialise by pressing a certain key (or combination of keys) on startup.... but exactly which key depends on what the laptop is.

[dotty.]

It's an acer aspire 6935G, it's the windows vista service pack 2 i think according to the microsoft support site

[ChuckFickens]

Just a thought here....

Does the laptop seem hot? if it's been trying to update for 12 hours and keeps restarting it may be overheating which is stopping the update completing.

[dotty.]

i#'ll do the one that takes it back to factory settings then, thanks, which one is that?

[dotty.]

it was left switched off all night apparently, this started yesterday but he went to work and didn't tell me about it. it's been restarting and going to that update screen for the last hour. There isn't a disc btw.

[ChuckFickens]

I think that you can access the factory restore by tapping alt+F10 as soon as you turn the laptop on and selecting restore to factory defaults... this will wipe the hard drive though.

[dotty.]

hi chuck, when i press alt and f10 this is what the scren has:
____________________________________________
edit windows boot option for microsoft windows vista
path:\windows\systems32\winload.exe


partition:2
Hard Disk: 4cbaa462

[/NOEXECUTE=OPTIN

_____________________

where do I go from there please?

[dotty.]

ooo it's doing it now,

[dotty.]

cheers Chuck, well done again, it didn't work at first pressing the alt f10 (tapping it or holding it down) but then it did! temperamental things aren't they?