I've actually cried all over a computer. That I think I broke.

[CarpeVinum]

Or maybe windows 8 hates me.

I need a fecking drink.

I'm 46 years old, allegedly not technologically incompetant (I used to repartition and reinstall and everything when I had windows XP, just haven't needed to do it for years) and I've cried all over this virtually new computer and I think I am about to cry again. Like actually plopping tears and everything.

If I can't fix it my son gets two crap Christmasses in a row. ( Mil was dying in hospital last year, so not so grave, but his most wanted xams pressies are totally redundant without his 'puter.

Due to a FURBAR during a.... "go back to factory settings you laggy git faced computer" session ....things went horribly wrong. Mainly cos the computer was speaking in Italian and I was tired. Probably.

So I had amazon UK rush a proper full copy of windows 8.1 in Bloody ENGLISH to Italy. DHL finally found me after a tense 48 hours of increasingly heated phone calls with me yelling "how can I always be "customer out" if you have kept me trapped in the house for TWO DAYS!"

I got into BIOS (whatever that is) I changed the boot thingie to CD-rom drive as first choice (gingerly, never been in BIOS before) All went swimmingly, but then it hung for hours and It couldn't finish the last bit of a clean install.

So a youtubber siad delete partitions.

So I did. Well some of them. 2. ACER and USER

And then I clicked next and the fecking computer complained something was missing so it couldn't run the cd-rom drive. Or something like that.

I have spent 113 euros. And all I have managed to do is kill the computer more.

And christmas is ruined cos the computer shop is not taking any repairs in till he comes back in the New Year.

Dos anybody have any ideas what has gone so horribly wrong and how to put it right ?

And if you don't. Can you please start sticking pins in an effigy of the Windows 8 wholly annoyingly displeasuring start screen of pissingoffness.

Or pass a hanky.

Is this peri menopause making me an emotional wreck due to poxy software ?

Wine. I wish I had wine.

but I doubt... Ermm, better make that "not a feckin' chance"...!

Ermm...Just had a thought. You bought a full 8.1 disk, not just an upgrade...?

proper full copy of windows 8.1 - sorry, would help if I read your first post properly... You already said it was the full version.

What happened when you tried the recovery?

this is the windows dics I bought. Seem all porper did I a duff one?

sassy the alt F10 at BIOS scree ? All that happened is that it asked if I wanted to exit and save.

Is,kill disc an application.

I'm waiting til after mass and then I'm going to start phoning people to ask them if I can come over to use their puter.

Good point 1sassylassy. If you're lucky, OP, you won't have destroyed the Recovery partition. Acers are generally a bugger to start the recovery process. You frequently have to try rebooting several times, thinking it won't work, and then it randomly does. You have to power up and straight away start holding the ctrl key down and repeatedly hammering the F10 key. You mentioned being concerned about having deleted the Acer partition - that's not a worry - that's the operating system partition that you were wanting to overwrite with your new installation anyway. If you have a full disk designed to do a clean install, deleting all the partitions is the way to go. I've installed 8.1 onto numerous blank drives (when customers have insisted - I can't stand it myself ). A clean start is best, imho...

Sorry OP. Meant to write Alt and F10, not Ctrl.

Please do not use killdisc,I know people mean well but you will make things worse

I was coming back to say make sure you hold down Alt+F10 whilst starting the machine.

That's the real deal - should work. Very odd! With regards to your clean install, can you please check that you don't have any USB devices plugged in when you are attempting to install from the disk.

With your attempted Factory Restore - for you to be ending up in the BIOS, it sounds like your press of F10 is all that's being registered. Make sure you're holding down Alt at the same time as tapping F10. Also, if you end up in the BIOS/setup screen, do the "exit without saving option" and as soon as you've selected that and left the BIOS screen, immediately re-press Alt and start hammering F10 again :)

Carpe - You definitely do not need to bug your neighbours. You should be able to reinstall with the disk you have. If you can't, we need to address why that is, but there's no driver or utility you can download that will help. If your PC shipped with Win8, the core drivers for the hardware will be on the full 8.1 disk. And you would not be able to install any drivers or utilities until you have a basic OS installed any way...

And agree with 1sassylassy - by far the simplest solution is if we can initiate a factory restore. I'd not give up on that just yet...

As an aside, could you elaborate on how your original problem presented? What made you decide to start over? Just wondering if you have a hardware (most likely hard drive) issue that caused your PC's initial instability and is scuppering the install?

Well, on the disc as well as install it offers "repair"

which takes me to troubleshooting, ad the restore, reset etc. menu.

DS is still asleep, as soon as he wakes up should I go and boot to the disc and try another restore to factory settings ?

Carpe,you mentioned when you tried starting the PC without the disc,you got a blue screen with a stop error code,any chance you could try that again and post the error code.I,m starting to wonder if your hard drive is shot.

Since getting the computer I have has to restore to factory setting three times. This last third attempt being DISASTER ALL ROUND.

The first two time windows wouldn't boot, couldn't load itself at all, was stuck in some kind of loop of death thingie. So youtubers said press a button and ypu'll get to the restore options. Which did happen. But the only one that worked was wiping everything are returning to factory settigns.

This last time The puter was taking an hour to load and hour to log in an hour to open a doc...madness.

I think maybe virus. Ever since we got the puter it has taken a very hard line in terms of secirty. abasically unless ai turn it all off it won't let my son go to school (he goes to an online secondary school in Britian), download so much as a pDf! let alone download and use steam and minecraft.

Basically my computer wants to be a plastic cirgin untouched by nasty outside files.

Becnse he needs the puter to go to school I've always had to just try and deal with issues on the fly.

Anyway, I think ai fucked up the return to factory settings, not sure, it was in Italian and I think I told it to attack all areas, not just where windows was installed.

I thinkmit just wiped wverything off itself and then sat there and vleated at me like it was my fault. When ai have clearly established it s enturely the youtubers fault. And I am not budging from that postion

hanf on, he is a sleep, I sneak in just tUrn it on.

here we are

This is a lazy cut-n-paste because it's 12:45 am here, but stick your 6.1 disk in an choose repair, as you said you were previously offered, then (quote):

Rebuild BCD from Command Prompt.

After you boot your computer using Windows DVD or System Repair Disc, a black screen appears with gray text "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD". Press any key.
b) Select the correct time and Keyboard type.
c) Click Repair your computer in the lower left corner.
d) Select Troubleshoot from Choose an option screen.
e) Click Advanced options in Troubleshoot screen.

f) Click on Command Prompt and run the following commands.

Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR, and then press ENTER.

Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT, and then press ENTER.

Type BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD, and then press ENTER.

6.1?? I mean 8.1

If that fails, from the command prompt (step (f)) can you please run chkdsk c: /R which might take a good long while, but the main thing we're interested in from the results is if it reports that any "bad sectors"...

Is that the black box that expect you to know DOS?

Or I do one after the other, or one at a time and see if anything happens ?

Ok, I'm yelling DS to get up so I can get in.

But I feel like a canary in a mine.

Youmpromise if I hit a wrong key I won't... murder the motherboard or something ? My track record "under the bonnet" hasn't been a raging sucess thus far

Arghh... sorry, ignore me - we know you said you deleted the system (Acer) partition so no way is repairing the master boot record, etc., going to be adequate. Let us know how you get on with the Alt + F10 recovery...

Yup command prompt is a black box which asks for commands.

Double check spellings and caps. If you do misspell something it probably won't do anything, rather than breaking something, but best to be safe.

You would do those one after the other.

Yes, command prompt is the equivalent of an old dos box...but no - absolutely nothing you can type will nuke your PC. At very worst you already have a hardware failure and need to deal with Acer to get a warranty repair. At best you just need to work out why your clean install isn't working. Did you check for usb devices left plugged in? My money (with so many wipes needed in 3 months??!) is hard drive failure...not virus.

Double check spellings and caps

Spellings, yes. Caps, nope. The commands are not case sensitive, unlike in Unix and Linux. You'd get exact same result with CHkDsK C: /r as what I originally typed...