Mike
If the laptop doesn't have any physical problems you should be able to do a complete new install from any disk if you have a serial number for the version of Windows you are installing.
As Titanic pointed out that may not be true with a disk from a manufacturer, which may be tied to the computer.
But any real Microsoft Disk or a official download should work.
The whole process should take about a half hour or so.
Installing and reinstalling Windows 7 You need to chose the custom install option so that it will completely remove and reinstall the existing operating system.
You can install it without the serial number it won't ask for that until you are done installing so you will be able to see if it works, but then you will have to get a serial number for the version of Windows you are installing before the time limit runs out.
You could contact Acer and see if it's possible to get a set of the original recovery disks that came with the computer.
The computer should have a sticker with some kind of number that identifies it. and maybe they could give you the original serial number. I know that I've done that for a friend who had a Dell and couldn't find his serial number when he had to reinstall.
If you had checked while it was still running you could have gotten the number off the computer, but I don't know any way to do that when it won't boot.
If it won't do the install, then I don't have any other ideas.
You should probably have an internet connection for it when you do the install so it can look for drivers etc.
You may want to plug it into a router directly and not have to deal with a wireless setup problem when you do it.
I haven't worked with laptops much, so I don't know how they handle setting up a wireless connection during the installation process.
But windows 7 will normally connect and download data before you ever see the start screen.
Mike