My Acer Aspire One is less than a year old. It will not boot to the C: drive. I get the following error message I get when I turn it on:
system disk=\Device\hard disk0: Windows Directory=D:\windows: Number of root causes=1: Root cause found-Boot sector for system disk partition is corrupt: Boot sector repair-failed error code=0x3.
What does all of this mean? How do I boot my netbook back into the C: drive? What may have caused this breakdown?
It sounds like your boot sector has been corrupted. I would first see if you can boot into a recovery console - many netbook manufacturers include a built-in partition which you can run an automatic recovery from which can restore the boot sector. Usually you would press a certain key at startup to do this; you'd have to look it up for your specific computer. If you are unable to do that, you will need to use a Windows 7 Restore Disk. Since it's a netbook, it probably doesn't have a CD drive, so you will need to copy the restore tools to a flash drive. On another, working Windows 7 computer, go to Start Menu > Control Panel > System & Security > Backup and Restore > Create a System Repair Disc, and follow the instructions to create the restore disk. Then, you can follow these instructions (using the rescue disk instead of the install disk) to create a bootable flash drive with the recovery tools. Boot from that, and the automatic troubleshooter will likely fix the broken boot sector.
Test your hard drive it may be faulty
Try ultimate boot cd
Since its a notebook you should need to use a flash drive as boot drive here is how to install on the flash drive
Use unetbootin to boot any Linux distro from usb;
btw, if your AOA is with SSD-drive, and you plan to do reinstall (after backing up your data), can recommend you to re-flash your SSD with a newer, faster firmware. It is a bit tricky (requires to tinker a bit with booting Grub4Dos, booting Acer's/Intel/Samsung FreeDOS-based flashing utility from it), but it gives +30-50% bootup speed boots. Need more hints?
Your boot sector is corrupt.
The easiest thing you can do is to use your recovery or Windows installation disk, or maybe even recovery utility if your machine comes preinstalled with one.
At the repair options, run startup repair. This should create a new bootsector for you.
If this doesn't work, using another Windows 7 disk, choose the repair options again but this time choose command prompt. Type the following command:
bootrec /fixboot
If you do not have a Windows 7 disk, you can download a trial (which works fine for this usage) from here
Hope this helps.
