Hi. I have just reinstalled WinXP Pro because of severe probs, one of which my Acer Aspire would not restart from the ShutDown option. To restart I had to press the shut down button until the machine stopped, disconnect the power and remove the battery for at least 10 to 15 seconds. I have not used the Acer recovery disk as it would not load and I formatted the partition and installed a fresh XP copy instead. The machine still will not restart and I have to go through the shut down process as outlined above. Does anyone have any ideas on what I may be doing wrong? I would dearly appreciate your help!

Since Acer Aspire is a name Acer applies to notebooks, PCs, all-in-ones, netbooks and more, we know nothing of your system. We need to know the make and model, and version of Windows, and a history of the problem.

Sadly, you have just figured out why reformatting is always a last resort and should b avoided at all costs - not only do lose everything not backed up, you end up months, if not years behind in security, and you never learn what went wrong, or how to prevent recurrence. And to add insult to injury, it often does not resolve the problem.

If this is a PC, I would start by replacing the CMOS battery - after unplugging the computer from the wall, and taking necessary ESD precautions to avoid damage from static discharge.