XP Media Centre Edition Probs (Acer Aspire 5101)

[Big Tone]

Hi all, I have an Acer Aspire 5101 Laptop with serious running problems.

The problems are exactly the same as Hitchfaces post but his solution has not worked for me.

At first I thought it was a virus but Avast didn't see anything so I uninstalled Avast and tryed Norton which didn't see anything either. I am now back to running Avast and PeerGuardian 2. Done spyware scan with Adaware but it hasn't found anything serious.

I have done disk check but this takes around 21-22 hours to complete (which isn't right), disk defragmentor won't run and any aplications take forever to load up and the CPU useage remains at a constant 100% while it's loading.

During booting the HDD light remains constantly lit.

At the moment the CPU useage is at 4% while it's idling but goes to a constant 100% while loading apps, copying folders etc.

The only apps to load with windows are Avast anti-virus and peerguardian 2.

Can anyone help?

The full specs are:

Acer Aspire 5101AWLMi
AMD Turion 64 MK36 (2.0GHz)
1GB Ram
100 GB HDD (Hitachi I believe) ((now partitioned to NTFS))
Redeon Xpress 1100
Windows xp Media Centre Edition (upto date)
Avast Anti-Virus
PeerGuardian 2

Thanks in advance

Tony

[Big Tone]

I downloaded a diagnostic tool from the Hitachi website which when ran gave me the option to repair bad sectors on the drive but then returned the message FALIURE CODE 0X70 DEFECTIVE DEVICE.

At a guess I think that I'm gonna have to replace the drive which gives me a new problem. As the laptop was supplied without a Windows disk does this mean that I am gonna have to buy Windows again even though I have a legitimate serial?

[Big Tone]

I managed to find my warranty details for the laptop and sent it back to Acer to be repaired under warranty.

They have sent it back unrepaired saying that the hard drive is not the original that was fitted from new. I phoned them to explain that the laptop is exactly as is was from when I bought it new and after all why would I replace the hard drive when it's under warranty and it would be replaced free of charge but they insist that it should have an Acer hard drive in and it actually has a Hitachi.

Anyone else had any experiences with Acer warranty support and anyone know what hard drive would have been fitted to this machine from new?

[backithink]

did you buy the pc direct from acer? or did you buy it from a third party retailer....... if so you may want to take it back to them and ask them why it does not have all the original parts that come with the pc... it may have been defective and they replaced the hd (maybe brought back to the store?)

[Big Tone]

That's the problem, I can't remember where I bought it. I bought it from a retailer through the net but can't remember who, I thought it was Ebuyer but they say not.
I thought that Acer fitted Hitachi drives but would like some confirmation and also cannot understand why a retailer would replace the hard drive rather than get it done through Acer???