Got a new Acer desktop at a Circuit city give away special.(computer is $700, buy the package with this 19" flat screen moniter, and the package is $600???)

Played with it for a couple of days, never got around to creating the recovery disks.(what, me worry??). Had 3 power surges (not interupts)on Sat that blew threw the Tripp lite surge/backup protection system.

The HD (serial AT, 2x 200 gig partitions) will not boot to anything, refuses chkdsk, and wants reformat. I presume lots of up front damage to HD.
Options:

will Acer accept this as a waranty even though this is not an acer materials failure? if they will and reload, I just mail the machine to them.

I have win xp, and other hard drives, so I can reformat and load xp on the drive. How do I then transfer the Acer provided XP, and their programs and drivers to the HD, since I did not make those all important backup image dvd's?

Depending on how many days you have owned it and where you purchased it, I would return it to the place I bought it from and tell them it was defective.

Seems really strange to have major issues like you describe, the computer could be a lemon.

Good luck!

did that. computer was about 30 days old. no inhouse warranty, no help

called ACER(8am est). new hd and reload disks are on the way. $230 hold on cc until hd is returned.

Glad ACER helped you out. Lack of support from reseller is a good reason to not buy laptops from Circuit City, though.

I have had power surges blow the mother board in the past but never the HDD.

MisterNice

But there are wires from the power supply to the HD, it could blow.

sorry, was unclear. hdd runs, will not boot or read and will not run chkdsk.

They ship without recovery disks? How silly is that?

Acer has been a good company for us to deal with when we were an acer shop, they always stood by their work.

I have to agree too, I don't think it was just the surge that did it, could be, but modern machines can pretty much handle it.

I would first try SpinRite
http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm
rumor has it that if it doesnt work, you can "agree to destroy your downloaded copy for a full refund"...so its worth a try.

I'm a fixit myself kind of guy...even if it costs me a few bucks...I'd rather pay $25 - $50 than ship it off and be without...but I'm weird like that.

So, another think I'd try, knowing you can always take it back, is replacing the hard drive controller card...or rather augmenting your system with a PCI-based controller. Just go to compusa and get a controller card (usually $30) and slap it in. You may have to disable the onboard controller in the BIOS (or be willing to accept some boot-time errors), but it will give you a better indication of what the problem is. I have seen quite a few onboard controllers go bad lately. Its actually been the hardware problem I've encountered the most, recently (and most recently).

If all else fails, pull a drive from a working machine (that has been backed up ) and slap it in. See if it at least tries to boot...you may not want to fully boot as it will start looking for drivers and may even trigger windows activation again...but if it boots it will tell you a lot (like the controller, wires, power supply, computer itself, etc) all work.

You might also be able to determine a lot using a linux bootable CD or DVD like Knopix or something.... just some troubleshooting thoughts.

Doesn't Tripp lite have this "$xx,xxx equipment protection" if the surge protection failed which causes damage to your PC?

I think they do, but the amount depends on the model of UPS you are using.

http://www.tripplite.com/support/warranty/insurance.cfm