I have an old Acer Travelmate 6410 which I use now and again mainly for games and the odd trips away.

The battery died long ago and was disposed of so it only runs off the mains.

When I power it up the hard drive light comes on and flashes for a while and then stops and it will happen 5 or 6 times before the laptop finally wakes up.

In between times I power down using the power button and start again.

Sometimes hitting the F2 button will make it start.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit and I want to try Windows 8.1 on this PC before running it on my desktop.

I have reloaded Win 7 and even formatted the C drive but it still happens.

Does anybody have any suggestions as to what it might be?

Is the hard drive even spinning up?

Listen closely after you've powered on the unit. It probably boots once the drive platters actually start to spin. (If this is the case then the drive is defective. Replace the drive.)

Is the hard drive even spinning up?

Listen closely after you've powered on the unit. It probably boots once the drive platters actually start to spin. (If this is the case then the drive is defective. Replace the drive.)

Thanks for that advice. I never thought of it.

I suppose that I could always try to change the boot up to the CD drive and leave the Windows CD in there.

The battery died a while ago and if I have to replace the hard drive it might not be worth the cost as I can get something newer at a not expensive price.

The PC is about 6 or 7 years old and it seems to be getting close to the end of its life.

a 2.5" 500-750GB can usually be found for under 2,000฿

Is the hard drive even spinning up?

Listen closely after you've powered on the unit. It probably boots once the drive platters actually start to spin. (If this is the case then the drive is defective. Replace the drive.)

Thanks for that advice. I never thought of it.

I suppose that I could always try to change the boot up to the CD drive and leave the Windows CD in there.

The battery died a while ago and if I have to replace the hard drive it might not be worth the cost as I can get something newer at a not expensive price.

The PC is about 6 or 7 years old and it seems to be getting close to the end of its life.

I don't know if it is practical possible. But putting your ear close to the drive, you should here it spin up (unless some loud fan close does the same).

It is common that the bearing get stuck but after a few tries it goes.

But there are also a 10 other possible reason, not drive related....

Thanks for the advice on replacing the hard drive. What I may do is when I upgrade my external hard drive is to leave that plugged in and change the boot up from internal to external.

By the time I buy another hard drive and a battery I am well on the way to buying a new laptop which would have a bigger hard drive, faster cpu etc so rebuilding this old one is not really a viable option.

What is likely to fail next I wonder?

What is likely to fail next I wonder?

Whenever faced with the price of a repair, that's the question I always ask myself.

Thanks for the advice on replacing the hard drive. What I may do is when I upgrade my external hard drive is to leave that plugged in and change the boot up from internal to external.

By the time I buy another hard drive and a battery I am well on the way to buying a new laptop which would have a bigger hard drive, faster cpu etc so rebuilding this old one is not really a viable option.

What is likely to fail next I wonder?

Considering my experiences with Acer, I would ask if there are any parts that may not fail.....The bag maybe...

Thanks for the advice on replacing the hard drive. What I may do is when I upgrade my external hard drive is to leave that plugged in and change the boot up from internal to external.

By the time I buy another hard drive and a battery I am well on the way to buying a new laptop which would have a bigger hard drive, faster cpu etc so rebuilding this old one is not really a viable option.

What is likely to fail next I wonder?

Considering my experiences with Acer, I would ask if there are any parts that may not fail.....The bag maybe...

I have had a couple of shoulder straps break. I have left it running 24hours a day for 2 days now and if I do a hot restart it is fine. I will shut it down toninght and see what happens tomorrow.