Acer Aspire 5520 won't boot

Mizuno55

New Member
Hi,

My Mom’s friend gave her a computer that wasn't working. They told her that they just had a new hard drive put in it. I don’t know much about the computer besides for it’s an Acer Aspire 5520-5912 with windows Vista. The computer won’t boot. A message keeps coming up that states:

NVIDIA Boot agent 249.0542
Copyright ©2001-2005 NVIDIA Corporation
Copyright ©1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Executing NVIDIA Boot Agent.

We don’t have the recovery disks for it but I’ve gone into BIOS and made sure that the D2D recovery is enabled. I’ve tried pressing ALT + F10 on start up and that does nothing. It goes straight to the NVIDIA Boot agent message stated above. Any suggestions on how to fix it?

Thanks for any help!
 
Go into the bios and disable network(lan)boot. Set boot order as follows

1. Cdrom
2. Hard drive


You are getting that message because it is either set for lan boot first or the system can't detect a hard drive attached to it.
 
Okay I did that. The message is no longer coming up but all I'm getting is a black screen with a blinking cursor...
 
I'm not sure. If it’s a new hard drive like they said it was then there’s probably not one on it. Can you download an OS from the internet or do you have to get one from microsoft?
 
I found an OS disk and tried installing in on the computer. The setup starts and loads files. Then a message comes up that says setup is starting windows. Then:

Welcome to setup. This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft (R) Windows (R) to run on your computer.
To setup Windows now, press ENTER.
To repair Windows installation using Recovery Console, press R.
To quit Setup without installing Windows, press F3.

I pressed ENTER and another screen comes up immediately that says:

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.
Make sure any hard disks are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.
Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.

Does that mean the computer is not recognizing the hard drive? Does the hard drive need to be formatted?
 
Sounds like you are trying to install XP and most likely the system is set for ahci mode and XP doesn't have native sata controller drivers. Go into the bios and see if the system detects the HDD. If it does, then look for a sata controller setting and see if you can change it from ahci to IDE/compatibility.
 
That means it doesn't detect the hard drive. Either the drive is dead or power or data connection to the drive doesn't work. When you turn the pc on do you hear the drive spin up?
 
Is this an IDE or Sata drive? Try a different data cable. Also check the bios to see if the controller is enabled.
 
Do you have the drive jumpered correctly and on the correct connector on the IDE ribbon cable?
 
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