Just to let you know PCworld came good, the laptop was delivered back last tuesday 27th, and seems to be in working order again, hurray! The battery catch/lock are fixed now, didn't know until now it was supposed to be spring loaded, and it seems to boot fine, so far. I guess it has restored my faith in PCworld a little and I may not be so scared to buy off them again in the future! Thanks all!

Just came by to say I delivered the laptop to PC World today as arranged which seemed to go smoothly enough. They told me it would be 2 to 3 weeks before it was ready, but they could not guarantee it would be delivered back to my home address as often this request slips the mind of their tech guys for some reason! There was a large pink plastic case waiting outside on my doorstep when I got home, presumably left by the courier that should have come last Wednesday and again on Friday to collect the laptop, sigh. Anyway fingers crossed there will be a happy ending, I shall pop back to confirm all is well or to have a mental breakdown when I have more news. Thanks for your advice and assurances.

Thanks Chris, I feel a little more calm and reassured now with your post, and that's a very good point you made re: change of delivery address, that would save me yet another 70 mile round bus trip and a long walk across town to the store!

OK, thanks again for your help.

Forgot to add you will need to click the 'apply' button before exiting msconfig.

Op you probably got this solved now but just in case you didn’t this may help: From the desktop in your list of programs menu locate accessories then click ‘Run’. In the little box that appears type msconfig , if using vista you may need to ok those annoying confirmation boxes. You should soon see the ‘System configuration utility’. On the ‘General’ tab you should see a menu below regarding ‘Startup selection’ . If you click the box beside where it says ‘Normal startup – load all device drivers and services’ so that the green dot appears your PC will load any stopped programs or services upon reboot.

Thanks for your quick response. I was praying I could rid myself of the cursed carbuncle that is PC world, but it seems not I’ll just have to pray they don’t mess me around more than they already have over this, but the signs are not good. I wonder who decides what is “significantly inconvenient”, I suppose if PC world do then there’s room to torture me more. Do you know if there is a time limit for them to fix it, what is a reasonable amount of time to give them to return the item to me?

Hi, I ‘m looking for some advice regarding a faulty Acer laptop purchased in October 09 from PC world. I bought the laptop for my daughter who was working away and delivered it to her a week later. Over the next few months she phoned a few times saying it would not boot, we resolved this simply by first booting in safe mode then rebooting again normally and it seemed to work ok again for a while. Five weeks ago she came back and since then the no boot 'can’t find OS' problem has arisen 3 times. I set it back to its factory default settings hoping this would help and it did for about three days then conked out again. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the battery is not sitting in the laptop properly and it will not lock in place, in fact trying to lock it in forces it further out and you can quite easily remove it no matter how the lock buttons are set since it's just about hanging out anyway. I took it back to PC two weeks ago and the guy said it was obviously defective and this could also be the cause of the boot failures, but they could not refund me since it was past the 28 day policy. He told me to phone Acer as it was not something PC world could fix. However Acer said they are not responsible and that my contract is with PC world, this is confirmed on the Acer returns policy on their UK web site in Big Red Letters which states “Please note that all Acer products purchased from PC World, Dixons or Curry's are supported via the store from which the product was purchased.” So I phone PC world who confirmed they would not refund me but they would collect it for inspection and repairs. I have waited in on two separate days for collection but both times nobody came. I have now arranged to travel the 35 mile to my nearest PC world store (again) tomorrow to drop off the laptop for them to take it away to repair. Thing is do I have to accept their demand they take it away to repair it when quite frankly I would rather get a refund and go elsewhere to buy another one. Can I insist on a refund since it is less than 6 months old, just by the skin of my teeth, however by the end of next week it will be past the six months. I’m quite angry now and very, very worried about PC worlds incompetent service it brings me out in a sweat wondering how long this will take and how it will go. Many thanks in advance for advice.