How good is Acer 5052?

Help on Acer Ferrari 3000, format ?

• Hi.... I have an Acer Ferrari 3000 LMi for 3 years now. - it's slow, esp when working on photoshop. - notebook's not reacting or taking a long time to react when a new usb device (flashdisk, camera etc) is plugged. - battery only last 30 mins now. (I read somewhere if u're always plugging the laptop, u need to take the battery out, so I did for 1,5 years, and now the battery only last 30 mins, I already asked acer tech support, explained to me dat battery life deteriorate in time even when not in use) Battery conditioning doesn't solve this problem. - i have weird message that pops up 6 times (each time) saying "windows - No Disk. There is no disk in the drive, please insert a disk into drive" everytime I turn my laptop on, after signing in to windows and it also happens from time to time for no particular reason, which I keep on clicking "cancel" 6 times, but it's not a virus. - sometimes I can't burn files on a blank cd, it's fine if there are already files on the cd - losing control on mouse scroll, mouse is in a hideous state where paintjob's flaking, and mouse top cover comes off. - the alphabets on keyboard are disappearing - when i press ctrl-alt-del , it says "Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator" HUH??? i'm the err.. administrator here and i don't recall disabling anything. - LCD screen is still perfect though - notebook shell/outer cover is almost scratch free I've already asked Acer tech support, but answers are unsatisfactory. Thinking of selling it, But somehow i still wanna make it right. (My sis has an Asus notebook for 5 years now, dunno what type, but specs are lower than my Acer Ferrari, battery still last 2 hours although she never ever takes it out of the notebook, alphabets on keyboard still intact, performance still good, only it makes a crazy creaky sound when you close it up) Anyway, for the Acer Ferrari 3000Lmi I have 1 system cd and 2 recovery cd from acer. (i think windows xp home is in the recovery cd.) I've already backed up all data (docs, pics) to an external harddisk. So.................. questions by a computer dummy , aka me 1. Is it easy to format ur notebook ? just follow onscreen instructions rite ? Will formatting my most of these problems go away ? 2. My C: drive holds 30 GB and D: 10 GB, Can I change that ? Would that be difficult ? I was adviced to get a partition magic program ? 3. During my 3 years with Acer, I've never updated any driver, usually I go to windows update and antivirus update, that's it. So basically I don't need to update any specific driver, right ? All initial drivers are in the system cd and recovery cd right, so I don't have to pre-save any drivers that are already in my computer ? 4. called acer tech support again, they mentioned something about saving the image of the hidden partition etc. something like that... and I don't know how to do it, acer hotline don't want to explain it to me because it's too complicated. Anyway... called the acer tech hotline once again, Today, this guy mentioned that I don't have to worry with the hidden partition. and if I format my computer using the Acer system cd and recovery cd , everything would be fine. Because that's what they do at acer service center anyway. they wouldn't do anything to the hidden partition, or saving disk image or anything like that to prevent losing the hidden partition. So... basically I'm lost. I have acer guys telling me different things. So...... help ? Do I have to save disk image of the hidden partition first ? (am i even asking the right question ?) how do I save the hidden partition to prevent losing it after formatiing it ? Do I just go ahead and format it because hidden partition wouldn't be affected at all ? 5. Does this mean that all previous windows update, SP2, virus update will all be erased and after I format, I have to download all the updates from scratch again ? 6. Is there anything else I should know about ? Thank you Nina

• Answer:

  hey there nina, Answer 1: YES 2: NO u don't need to use partation magic. u can do it when u r reformating. 3: NO. u do not need to update. u can do it after u had reformat ur hard drive. acer will detect if it need to update. don;t worry. 4: what?? that's new?!! my acer ferrari don;t have that stuff. they r bluffing...i have reformat any there is no such thing as hidden partition and my notebook worked properly... 5: YES but i am not sure what kind of recovery disk u r using but if u r using the normal one then yes... 6: i don;t think sure... if u r having problem u should mail me or catch me on9...my mail is [email protected] or [email protected] usually use hotmail....