[Scott Douglas]

Finally heard back from Acer on this computer problem. They want me to ship the box to Texas for the warranty work. That ain't happening since I can't delete all our sensitive data from the HD because I can't get it to work. The old catch 22 type of thing.
So, I got in touch with Micro-Center and they want $40 to diagnose the problem and they're really busy so it could take a week.
In the mean time, I'm sitting here thinking that with help I can get this thing back up and running cheaper than taking it somewhere.
I subbed in a known good HD and while it asked for a really old password I think the power supply heated up enough for the problem to surface as it started to cycle on/off just like it did with the original HD.
I guess what I'm asking for here is some support for fixing this thing.
I think the basic computer is pretty decent, they just cheaped out on some of the 'support' hardware, like the power supply. If the HD is toast I can live with that as I'm thinking an SSD would make this work a lot better for the intended user.