http://www.google.com/search?q=0x0000009f+vista might help. The description for a 9f error is 'driver power state failure' and that doesn't look good.

- new laptop?
- did it ever work?
- what changed since it last worked?
- does ot boot in safe mode?
- can you do a system restore from the command prompt?

If it's remedied by going back to the very beginning using the acer system recovery it was software. If even that doesn't help it was hardware.
But for the moment, I think it's a driver problem.

Kees