Acer Recovery Partition - Can this be editted?

I've just got a 1410 with win7. I am going to split the disk into to C: and D: so that if I have to replace the OS on C: my data on D: is untouched. That's the theory. Of course I have a portable USB and will backup on to that but Murphy always catches you. I've tried alt+F10 and that said do you want to replace drive C: 60GB. Yes I said. It's done that but not sure if it hasn't put more back. I seem to have Power DVD which I didn't think I had before and its a strange program to have on a PC with no optical drive.

But what it has done is made C: 136GB again. I'm not sure if that is because I hadn't made a D: drive (just blank space) so that is the next test. But if it over writes a D: drive then recovery is pretty useless. Before going that route you'd need to boot from USB first to get your data off and by the time you've done that why not have the win7 files on the USB so you can do a normal windows reinstall?

What I'd really like to do is get into the recovery script and change what it does. Is there a way to do that? Has anyone done that?

TIA

 

I'll answer my own questions:

1. If you do alt+F10 and reinstall win 7 when there is a existing D: drive then D is not deleted.

I guess what happens is that C is deleted and then C is recreated with default values of use all available space. Hence the reason C grew back to normal size when I didn't have D. This is pretty neat and really good reason for have data on D not C. It's a worst case situation of course since you'll then have to re-install all the programs.

2. The free program partition Wizard will view all the partitions and you can explore their contents. I didn't seem to be able to open the files though. I have 3G free on the PQSERVICE partition which is a bit of shame although perhaps it needs that for temp files during a rebuild. I've read that you can change the ID on PQSERVICE from 0x27 to 0x07 to make the disc visible to windows but I haven't tried that.

 

I used Easeus Partition Master to unhide the PQSERVICE partition http://www.partition-tool.com/

I didn't like the fact that the hidden partition is at the front of the harddrive where I prefer to have my main operating system. (I'm using XP on an AO531) So what I ended up doing, and this is probably more radical than you need, pulling all the drivers and Acer specific programs I wanted to keep and recovered the partition. Then I got an iso of XP SP3 (It's perfectly legal to do if you use it on a licensed computer, with Vista and I'm sure Win7 all versions of the OS is on the DVD from basic to Ultimate, your license decides which one you can legally use) and used nLite (vLite is the Vista version, not sure what Win7 would use) to cull out the crap I didn't want, slip stream most of the drivers including in my case the text mode drivers for AHCI and slip stream the XP Tablet PC SP2 extensions. I'm installing a touchscreen and turning mine into a tablet) I completely erased and merged both partitions on my harddrive and did a re-install so I have a nice lean up to date version of XP with Tablet extensions which I can easily re-install without all the Acer Bloat

I still have the original Recovery Disk I made when I got the netbook but I doubt I'll ever use it because it takes to long to remove all the shareware crap and Acer Bloat after I re-install. I have nLited or vLited install disks for all my computers, it's a little tricky learning to use the program but it will set everything for you including a lot of stuff you usually do after a new install like 'default view' or 'show hidden files' in Explorer, Logins, Users, and Services. Basically to reinstall all I do is start the nLite/vLited install disk, go grab a cup of coffee and in less than half an hour I have a desktop with the latest drivers, Service Packs, and my defaults all set and ready to go. All I have to do is run Windows Update. (You can also slipstream all updates and hotfixes but there are so many in XP and Vista now it's just easier to run Update after install)

http://netbook2chartplotter.blogspot.com

 

I've done a slipstream disk for my desktop PC. But I don't have a usb optical drive and no plans to get one. I don't see that USB opticals are the way to go. I have usb portable harddrive, 2.5in 320GB, smaller than a DVD box. I'm thinking of making that bootable and putting win7 DVD on that as an alternative rescue method. The usb hd also functions as back for the internal disk so it's a an effective solution to backup and recovery.

But I like the Acer recovery partition as it is a tried and tested method and puts back all the acer drivers etc.. Very much a last resort though, although I guess the replace just the operating system might not be so dramatic. When I've sort the usb hd out I think in the event of serious problems that's the first thing to try then acer's replace the operating system, then the full overwrite.