Acer Stuck on Install Cleanup 31/32 - Screenshot Inlcuded

Hi guys, I hope you can help.

I have an Acer Aspire 5742. It ran perfectly for 11 months (bought from brand new) then suddenly started going very slow and laggy. I defragged and ran all the virus protection to no avail. I downloaded CCleaner which did something detrimental to my registry. The laptop then wouldn't boot past the "Windows 7 is loading" screen after this.

Eventually, after many restarts, the only thing I could do was go into the Laptop in Safemode, backup all my files to a USB and reformat the laptop using the Acer service I could access after many failed attempts at a System Repair.

Everything ran fine, Windows is installed, I named my Hard drive and all the rest of it, but then it just wouldn't get past 31/32 on "Install Cleanup".

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I got this screenshot after managing to quickly close down the install by tapping the windows key constantly and closing off the program from the taskbar.

I let it run 16 hours straight with this Installing 31/32 message and nothing happens. I just constantly have this Acer screen telling me not to turn off or remove the power as it's installing software. I can't access the rest of the laptop and every time I force restart it goes back to this screen.

I'm typing this through Safemode which is running smoothly, but when I did close the Install Cleanup from the taskbar as mentioned above, the normal side of the laptop seemed to lag very badly still, even though it's totally reformatted. There also seems to be no or very little drivers installed. Word starter is also non-existent.

I'm a novice, clearly, and any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

reply to post by Scope and a Beam

Well first I will say I am not a fan in genral of Manufacturer's "restore cd's" but that aside, it is hard to actually see what step 31 is. My guess would be to contact Acer's helpdesk and tell them of your troubles. If the worst comes to the worst, take it to where you bought it and use your guarantee. Personally I'm guessing you have some kind of hardware issue, possibly a dying hard drive or a memory chip with bit errors.

Good luck!

PS Look in Windows Event Viewer or whatever they call it now and check under System to see if there are any/many "red" messages that possibly contain info on what the problem is. An Acer restore CD should (I would think) return your laptop to more or less original state with all or at least most drivers installed.

As a possible point of historical interest, the Windows 95/98 install routine often used to crash on PC's with hardware troubles often with cryptic errors such as General Protection Fault and the like. It was in just about all cases I saw in a work-related capacity due to some piece of malfunctioning hardware, quite often the memory. Linux could do the same too. It is due to the relatively high stress levels placed on the machine. Hard disks and cd drives and the buses (USB, PCI) in between constantly passing data for sometime more than an hour is not really what most of us average computer users know as "average use".

Good luck again!

reply to post by Scope and a Beam



I recommend using a regular Windows install and not the Acer install package. Download the drivers from the Acer website and put them on a USB drive to make your life easier.

I wouldn't recommend this normally, but you've already reformatted and it's still running slow.

Try to install a true copy of Windows 7, not the software package that comes with the laptop. If you don't have a copy I can tell you this - where I live it's not illegal to download anything, but it's illegal to own for logner than 24 hours if you don't have a legitimate copy. So I could download a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and keep it because I already own a license. I'm not sure where you are or what your laws might be, so check before acting if this concerns you.

You can try using the CD key that should be on a sticker on your laptop to register, but it might not work. If it doesn't MS support should be willing to give you a new key in exchange for your old one. Just tell them you lost the original disks but a friend had a copy of whatever version you end up getting (has to be the same as what your laptop came with, I assume windows 7 home premium)

I have wiped every single laptop I've ever owned and installed a clean, bloatware free copy of windows as soon as I get it home.

If you continue to have problems you might have a hardware problem. A couple of things come to mind but if you get to this point it's really trial and error to identify what's causing the problem.

Good luck!

reply to post by BIGPoJo

As stated in the OP, the user is not all that familiar with PC's. Seeing as how it is 11 months old I think it would be easier to make a claim on the guarantee. Finding the right illegal ISO from internet, along with a working key and burning it onto CD might also be tricky with a non-functioning machine. You are right about installing from Windows CD's, but it's not everyone's idea of a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


Agreed, the appropriate action would be to get take advantage of the warranty. On a side note, Windows 7 should only take 30-45 minutes tops to do a fresh install with about 5 clicks of a mouse.

reply to post by Scope and a Beam


I think LightSpeedDriver has the right idea. It sounds like a hardware issue. You can try another reload from scratch. As long as you have all your critical data backed up, you have nothing to loose. If you have failures on the second attempt, take it back to the store, or call Acer. Be sure not to wait too long. 366 days into a 1 year warranty might as well be 20 years past. Good luck.

Well, I don't recommend Acer for anyone. Their laptops simply don't last long until hardware starts to break. In early Aspires, it was normal that screen goes bad. I have had 2 Aspires, both worked only some time until screen got broken. They are cheap, but you don't get quality.

I agree with most of the posts, I would say try again with a legal full version of Windows 7, not a restore disk, make sure when you format you use the long format option it works better.

As for the slowness I found that microsoft bundled how it handles the cache files for multiple programs into the Internet Cache, which is sized way to small.

Open your internet options from either IE or control panel. In the browsing history section On the General Tab, hit the settings button. Where it shows amount of disk space to use it will probably be some ridiculously low amount. Set it to 1024mb. Then go to the internet options window go to the advanced tab, scroll all the way down to find "Empty temporary files folder when browser is closed". Select that. Then apply and ok. You should see a tremendous difference in performance. If you do not use IE as a browser, just open it every once in a while and close it again so that it clears the cache. *This actually fixes a silly amount of issues with outlook FYI*

You may also want to look at running msconfig and shutting things down on the startup tab, (seriously if you don't know what to stop from running google it) Do not mess with it if you don't know what it is. I am willing to bet that with a real windows install not the acer restore you will not have any problems. hope this helps.

Guys this is a massive help but I feel as if I'm going to end up derailing the thing even more. The man at the laptop shop near is good and said for a pretty cheap price he can sort it out. Do you think I'm better off just doing this?

I appreciate the help but I really am a huge novice when it comes to stuff like this.

And if it is a hardware problem will Acer fix or simply replace the laptop?

a reply to: Scope and a Beam

Hi,

I had a similar problem with my Iconia W510. Managed to solve it after 3 days of trying by using an external optical drive READ interrupt to get to the task manager. Here is the complete guide:
borovicka.blogspot.sk...

Good luck.