Acer Hidden Recovery Partition

Guys I just installed Vista on my Aspire 5102wlmi, graphics are nice, but system is crap IMHO - too many compatibility issues. Anyways back to the topic, I forgot to make a recovery cd b4 I installed it. Alt+f10 is not booting up the recovery partition - what to do? Any ideas?

 

uGuru,

At that point I'd call ACER and see if for a nominal fee they can provide you with a recovery DVD/CD, alternatively go buy a copy of windows. You might try deleting the other partitions and see if that allows you to use the recovery partition, but I really don't know if it will.

 

hi,

I want to erase hidden recovery partition in my aspire 5102wlmi notebook.
I burned my recovery dvd's and I want to burn my own image DVD but I don't want to copy this hidden partition in my own recovery partition.

Could someone please tell me how can I find this partition.

Thank you.

 

Just to remind you that if you lost your hidden partition and didn't burn a back up. Acer europe charges 50 pounds for a replacement dvd! (Money grabbers...) Anchemis

 

Download Gparted ISO, Burn to CD or DVD, then Boot up with Gparted CD.

It will show the hidden Partition which will be PQSERVICE and/or DEV1. Basically the first and the smallest one.

Heres the download link ..... http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

Set Bios to boot from CD, if it doesn't already do so.

I'm thinking about doing the same myself. But I'm going to burn another copy first. I rather have two copies or more, than just one.

 

I deleted my hiden partition by accident (didn't know about it at all completly formated the disk when reinstalled OS) but I still got the back up image DVD that I burned when I started my lapy for the first time.
Will it work without eRecovery and D2D at all and can I use it to reinstall my OS???

 

The hidden partition, if i'm not wrong, is for reformating your computer to default factory settings without using boot cds. The backup cd's eRecovery had you burn after a fresh install are essentially the same thing as the hidden partition on your harddrive (at least I think so). I have been able to reformat my 5102 from using either my backup disks or from my hidden partition (without disks). Might I also note reformating to factory settings from the harddrive is a whooole lot faster than using the boot disks (runs from the harddrive). Anyways, both ways lead me to essentially the same system startup with the bonus software and what not. I hope this might answer your problem.

If you really want to see if your disks work, the best thing to do is obviously to give it a try. Just set up your BIOS to boot from the dvd drive and hope for the best.

 

Yes I know but I don't want to do it yet because I have a fresh install,I am waiting now for myself to ruin my sistem and then give it a try because if the recovery DVD fails than I am in deep...

 

Hello all, I have a question? I too have deleted the hidden partition, and now can't make a recovery and etc. that uses that partition...but that isn't my concern... I have an Aspire 5102WLMi, which is "Windows Vista Capable", and I plan to put the Vista and Office 12 as soon as they become available (January 2007 if I'm corect)... Will Vista also require this hidden partition? Because my HDD is 80GB, on the Microsoft Vista site it says required 15GB of space for the installation and use for the Vista... if we add min. 2 GB for a hidden image, then the available space is about 63 GB... Can someone correct me if I'm wrong...?

 

Thank you for your help.
I haven't deleted my partition yet but I will or not.,
Because I thought that partition is in C drive but when I check my disk management I saw that hidden partition is in another drive which is almot 4 gbs.

 

If you plan on installing Vista, you won't be needing the hidden partition. I actually tried Vista on my notebook for a bit before reinstalling XP Pro. I'm pretty sure my hard drive had about 6-10GB less space after a clean install of Vista (hidden partition was deleted during format).

 

I have Aspire 5112 WLMi "Windows Vista Capable",I read on some other forum that if your Acer notebook has this sign you get a free copy of Vista.Is this true and if yes how do you get it,you download it or...??????

 

Acer 1360...

I messed up my hidden partition with partition magic.

First i couldnt restore the partitions (this was due to stuff that was already on my drive interfering with the symantec thing)

so i deleted the partitions that were left (i keep all my data backed up on another computer) and used the recovery disks to repair the ghost partition,

however now i cannot use alt+f10 to boot into that partition (it is enable in bios settings).

anybody got a program for restoring this custom MBR? my recovery CDs dont have it

 

AFAIK, this label only shows the user that his PC/laptop meets the system requirements for the Windows Vista (here's the link for the requirements - Link)

Here' what they say on the Acer Webpage about Express upgrading to the Vista:
Link

 

Thanks Vanja,unfortunately I bought my Acer in july.

 

Hello!

I installed Ubuntu which installed GRUB thus deleting the acer MBR. Now I need to restore my laptop, but I can't access the D2D Recovery, probably because of the MBR.

Is there anyway to restore the MBR? The partition is intact. I don't have recovery cds, cause my dvd writer never worked.

Please help!!

edit: Hmm, I can explore the PQSERVICE partition with Acronis Disk Director. Maybe if I extract the that mbr??dos.exe file (meh, can't remember the name) and run it, it could work?

 

Hi umanzor,

if you are looking for the mbr exe to restore the alt F10. You need to look into the PQservices or a back up disc that was made before losing this function. The file to look for is mbrwrdos.exe, you will find this in file acer\tools\mbrwrdos. To run this you will need to be in dos.
Once ran this should rebuild the mbr to allow the recovery to work.

 

Hi everybody,

I have an Aspire 3624 (Win Xp home). I don't have the recovery CDs, neither recovery DVDs. The C: got broke and windows coundn't start. As I have important stuff, I tried to copy it but I couldn't. Then I tried the ALT+F10 thing but didn't work, beacuse of C: root files or files like this are missing. Finally I installed Win XP Pro from other CD (not the recovery one).

What can I do to create the recovery DVD...? how can I recover by pressing ALT+F10..? How can I copy the hidden part as a backup..? which program should I use..?

Thanks

 

This is what I did, I called Acer support told them that I just purchased the laptop it didnt come with any recovery cds and that i did nt make any backups because i didnt know how to-> computer illiterate ^^. Told them that when I pressed alt+f10 nothing but a cmd prompt came up; guy put me on hold and told me that they would ship out recovery cds to me. Sure enough 2 days later they were there ^^. PS never tell them you installed another OS > void warranty immediately.

 

I found the eRecovery is very useful in creating current OS and programme installations backups in D:drive. I need to replace the 40GB HDD on my ACER AS3623 with a 120GB. I do not have the NAPP CD, any help to create the hidden partition on the 120GB is appreciated.

 

How do I view what's on the PQSERVICE partition of my hard drive so that I can find mbrwrdos.exe?

 

The "guest" & "guest" login is no longer valid password. Where can I download the NAPP CD?

 

If somebody can upload ISO image of NAPP cd on rapidshare or similar that would be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

I have an Acer 5024wlmi laptop with Vista OS and would like to go back to Xp but every time I try to install it, the laptop shuts down during installation process without warnning. The solution, I think, is to format the whole disk and do a clean install of Xp but that would erase the hidden partition and away warranty (or would it?). So my question is: How to go from Vista back to Xp but still keep the hidden partition?

 

Without using the D2D recovery partition or without the restore DVD the next best option would have been to back up your partition table with Acronis True Image 7 for FREE. But you probably did not do that, so your only hope is to send it back to acer and have them re-image the hdd for you.

--ssx--

 

I have the Acer backup DVD and I've tried using it but the same thing happend (shut down during installation) and the screen went black, so I've re-installed Vista. Looks like I can (re)install Vista but not XP.

 

Hi all

My girlfriend has a 1690 and it recently started losing XP files at random (from the system32 folder). We reinstalled it a couple of times and itkept losing files after a period of time. I assumed this was a hd prob and installed linux and some tools to try and track it down.

Now when the restore CD is put back in it complains about "incorrect disk in drive c:"

Is there a way to solve this or is it a dead HDD?

We've since tried linux again once or twice and it seems to not hold its partition table. Keeps reading the table as "unknown filesystem".

Anyone seen this before?

 

Fixed it!

Redid the partition table, then restored windows (which didn't restore the MBR, can I have a REAL windows disk with my purchase next time please?) and then restored the MBR with a copy of knoppix and testdisk

 

Hi!
I want to make a clean XP install, but to leave all partitions as they are so that I don´t mess anything up. I was thinking of formatting C: and D: (by using Partition Magic from Hiren´s for exampe, although I´m not sure yet if that will work, more research is to be done), then converting them to NTFS and finally installing XP. The idea is that I want to leave PQSERVICE and be able to use it, if I need to. But then I found this:
"Also, if you re-installed WinXP, it would have overwritten the MBR (WinXP tends to do that nasty). This means you've lost the Acer-specific MBR code (unless you imaged the drive before installing WinXP). The Acer-specific MBR is what "notices" Alt-F10 and changes which partition to boot. You most likely now have the WinXP MBR code, which doesn't check for Alt-F10, so nothing will happen.

If you still have your PQSERVICE partition, and want to boot it, you still might be able to. You'll need a bootable CDROM (or bootable USB floppy drive) with Win98 command prompt and some utilities, like PTEDIT."

So, what about that?
And what would be the best way for me to format the partitions separately, not the whole hard drive, and convert thenm (if that´s possible) and will I lose this booting option as far as the MBR is concerned (I know PQSERVICE won´t work with NTFS)?

 

Hi!!!
Guys i need some help...I own Acer Aspire9804WKMi with raid hdd and my recovery partition must be erased (my disk is formated)Alt+F10 don't do anything.Now i can't install XP, i need to go with F6 and install raid drivers but i dont have floopy drive (Acer say's that they want 50 Euro for recovery disk LOL)

Plzzzzz Help meee!!!

P.S. Sorry for my English.

 

hi, where can I get image of NAPP CD ? It is not possible to log in to acer as guest. Google didn't help me.
Thanks a lot.

 

Hi Guys
I had a nice working acer 5633wlmi but it would not alt f10 for recovery i tried on the forums and used mbrwrwin.exe there was no mbrwrdos i thought it would fix everything but nope i messed it up big time.
Luckily i created the back dvd (2 disks) now i want to know is the data on the dvds the same as what was on the hidden partiton , also can some one post the mbr so i can try to recreate the hidden partition and file structure or am i stuffed.
This is a great learning cuve for me back up before you start playing !!!!

 

the PQSERVICE partition is burnt to the DVD's and made bootable. I know of no way to end up recreating the partition unless you did a full hdd table backup with ghost or other equivilant software.

--ssx--

 

do you know what utility was used to create the mbr and pqservice partition ?

 

Acer Inc. in their factory. Ask them how they did it (although I highly doubt they will tell you)


---ssx--

 

I had a backup of the partition useing paragon disk manager unfortunatlty no backup of the mbr so i think i am half way there in resoring the hidden partition problem is on a 120 gig hard disk what i need is the mbr which has the hidden partition info even if it is the wrong size i can modify it

 

If you don´t need the hidden partion,use the rescue DVD´s and restore to original.And then use the paragon disk manager to restore,worked for me except iI had Acronis true image.But if you want the hidden partion,then I dont know..

 

i have reinstalled the hidden partition now it does work if i make it active and i can reinstall from it but i have lost the alt f10 (d2d) function which is what i wanted most if somebody who has a working d2d can back up the mbr and post it that would probarbly reolve my issue even if it is for a different model as i wll be able to play around and see and hopefully resolve this pqservice partition once and for all

 

Hi Guys Success I have got alt f10 working on my 5633wlmi !!!!!
It was very simple in the end what i did was the following :
if you have a pqservice partition but alt f10 does not work there is a file called mbrwrwin.exe and rtmbr.bin which is needed to install the acer missing magic code
all you have to do is type the following on a dos promp (worked in xp shell too)
mbrwrwin install rtmbr.bin
it adds the file to a slot
once you have done that reboot the computer and wait it took a while restarted it then it seems to find new hardware dont know what it finds then do a reboot and then you can alt f10 to your hearts content
hope this helps some people if you made a backup dvd or cd i am sure you can use them create the partition install them and get your machine back to factory default.
when i checked the forums everything was pointing to useing mbrwrdos.exe but i did not have that file. and the only file i had was mbrwrwin.exe so if you do a /? it gives you the options
i have run alt f10 a few times to check that it is working without any problems .
Have fun

 

Gurujosh,

Are you saying that without restore CD's/DVD's, but if the hidden PQService partition is still intact, I can simply type:

mbrwrwin install rtmbr.bin

Into DOS and recover the ability to alt+F10, and then restore my system to factory default from the PQService partition?

The reason I ask is this:

I recently installed Ubuntu 6.10 in a dual boot configuration, and in the process deleted my Acer D: drive, which means Acer eRecovery won't work, and I neglected to burn any restore DVD's.

I now want to restore the computer to factory default but have lost alt+F10 ability due to ubuntu overwriting the Acer custom MBR with GRUB.

So, will this work?

Thanks in advance.

 

in a nutshell yes
but you have to create a c partition first for this command to work
if you go into a fdisk enviroment a easy way to do a recover is set your hidden partition to active and deactivate all other partitions the computer will then boot into the acer recovery program from there let it go through its install and after it reboots deactivate the hideen partition and set c drive as the active partition once you have done that run the command and it will give you the alt f10 option.
hope this helps you

 

Can somebody please upload the NAPP CD iso somewhere (e.g rapidshare)?

 

Okay, I tried "mbrwrwin install rtmbr.bin" in the shell and nothing happened ... so I went looking for mbrwrwin on my laptop and found it in the eRecovery directory on my computer.

When I tried to execute this .exe in the shell I got this error:
"Error loading file: RTMBR.bin"

I then went looking for this file all overmy computer and can't find it ... I then looked on my Restore CDs, and still can't find it; where could it have gone?

Should I just set my PQService to boot and run the factory recovery from there and see if it fixes my ALT-F10 problem (non-existant)?

Also, what flags, etc. should my D: have?

Thanks!

 

setting the pqservice to boot will not fix the f10 problem just out of curiosity do you have any files with **mbr.bin ? they may have changed the file name ihave you also tried viewing hidden files ? i will be more than happy to send you the file via email if your unable to locate it

 

ok aspire 5100 been working ok but found a weird network connection
i did not have any personal info on the system so i just though i'd throw in the recovery disks in fail'ed at 47% afther 3 times called acer and they said bad hard drive give us your visa number and will send a new one i would have just fdisked it and installed windows but looked here first nothing seemed to work then i found the 2d2 in setup and rebooted it and it installed windows find still alt f10 dont work but i do have the partation i could email some one if they walk me throught the correct way to save it be glad to help in any way thanks

 

if anybody needs a walkthrough or missing files info send me a pm i will reply with my email address

 

Hi, I have a Acer 1522, the HDD has been formatted, I have the 2 CD-rom (Recovery CDs)...

As I have formatted the HDD due to viruses I can't access the recovery cd's via the software on the system. I was reading on another forum that these images have been created in Ghost. So I used a ghost boot disk to start recovery however it's asking me for a password. I tried 000000 (default)

Please help

Thanks

 

Hi, Thanks for all the advise that has been posted so far. I have an Acer Aspire 5670. I installed vista, and regret it, and wish to switch back to XP. My backup (primary) partition is still intact.

I made the primary partition active and it successfully booted to the eRecovery program. I continued with the recovery yet recieved an error "cannot find file C:\preload.tag"

I'm pretty sure this is because i have some how managed to make my secondary partition D:\ and my third partition C:\. I assume that is why i get the error.

I still have Vista running on the third parition and in windows 'disk management' it does confirm that it is on C:\ and the 3rd partition

Does anyone know how i can go about changing the drive letters? I don't really care if vista partition gets wrecked in the process.

Thanks, David

 

I've got the same problem now. ALT+F10 doesn't work.
I've found the mbrwrwin.exe file but when I run it as mentioned above then I get an error that he couldn't find the rtmbr.bin file. Should this file be located on the C-drive? Please help,

 

Having been helped so much by these pages, like to say THANKS.

I too have regained ALT + f10 function after a lot of STRESS!!

1. use explore image wit Partition magic 8 or Acronis disk director.
copy and paste ??mbr.bin and mbrwrdos.exe to c:\ (root directory)
2. boot to c:\ prompt using win 98 disk !!! (Installed is xp pro)
3. at prompt type "mbrwrdos.exe install ??mbr.bin and press enter The ?? may be any two characters acording to stuff i have read.
4. reboot (windows finds new hardware - don't know what!!)
5. reboot again and at ACER screen you should see "Press f10 or ALT + F10 to restore.
6. keep fingers crossed. It worked for me.
7. mail me if you need help. I am a newbie though.