hi,
please correct me if my understanding of the issue is wrong...
The Problem:
Laptop would not boot up.
Things done to correct the problem:
- Reinstall of XP via eRecovery but has error pointing to SAMLIB.DLL
- Reinstall of XP via install CD but says it cannot find the hard drive
Please give some details on the XP CD used. Are these ACER recovery CDs?
Also have you tried to check RAM using Memtest86+? By any chance you checked the status/health of the drive using an HDD diagnostic tool?
Please do post back with any information you can provide.