BIOS can "see" HDD and CD/DVD drives but cannot boot from either

Fireprism

Estimable
Nov 18, 2014
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4,510
Hey guys,

Had a friend ask to have her laptop wiped and have a fresh install of Windows done. The laptop is about 4 -5 years old. Everything seemed fine until i noticed that it would only seem to boot from the HDD or the CD/DVD drive from a cold boot, but when it restarted on it's own (from the various restarts during installation of Windows) it would only run the Bios and then get stuck on a black screen with the cursor at the top. I would have to shut it completely off to continue.

Was able to get the OS installed and started to update windows.Then during one of the restarts for windows updates the laptop would no longer boot. It will run the BIOS like normal but when it tries to boot the HDD it just stops at the black screen with the cursor. Tried booting to the CD/DVD and same thing.

The BIOS can still "see" both the CD drive and the HDD. I took the HDD out and hooked it up with a IDE bridge to another computer via USB, was able to see and access the HDD, so the drive seems fine (based on my limited knowledge).

Would this point more towards an IDE interface issue?

The laptop is an Acer Aspire 3935