Erecovery Basics _ Win XP _ Acer notebooks.

No VISTA support in this thread ... sorry friend ..

 

I am trying to restore an Acer 1690 to original. A repair person had begun an installation of WXP Pro and quit half way thru. Left the CD in it. I finished the installation. Invalid windows key now. Probably because the store went bankrupt.

edit: Original OS was WXP home

The hidden partition PQSERVICE is still there as is the ACERDATA D: partition. I used a SLAX Live CD to copy both to a cd before proceeding. So, by the way, I have all those files if anyone needs one.
My question is this. Is the eRestore software there in the hidden partition, or must I get it elsewhere? I cannot find it...2 days search so far. the f 10 feature doesn't work. Thanks.

 

@login1234

Do you know anything about DOS ?
If yes ...

Buy one USB floppy drive .. Load one boot loader with it .

This will boot the hidden partition , and eRecovery will load windows and the ACER software .
Yes the windows version of eRecovery , it will loaded too .

 

Hi, Kiriakost. Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, know a bit about DOS, not much. But...here is what I did that worked:
1. Installed all the drivers recommended here http://support.acer.com/
---alt + f10 didn't work
2. Ran Acer.bat from Acer_MBR_F10_Repair.zip found at http://www.fixya.com/support/t223496-d2d_recovery
---alt + f10 didn't work
3. Ran 1690FIX.bat found at http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/notebook/0000/Acer/Aspire1690/Aspire1690faq3.shtml

Code:

cd\
regsvr32 /s msxml3.dll

---alt + f10 didn't work
4. Disabled fast boot using Acer eManager installed in step 1.
---alt + f10 worked!!

Was able to restore factory original OS, update everything, and the little 1690 is how humming along nicely with 512 k ram and a legal copy of windows.

Not sure just how many of those steps I could have skipped if I had just disabled fast boot in the first place, but...who knew? This process has taken about 3 1/2 days, many restarts, but it is worth it.

I was prepared to use a boot loader, was trying to decide which, do you recommend one? Turned out not needed, but maybe in the future.

I found it interesting that the 2 special partitions, PQSERVICE and ACERDATA D: had survived the botched attempt to install WXP Pro, and especially that SLAX allowed me to view them and copy them to a cd, just in case everything messed up.

Thanks again for helping.

 

Thats great news ...

I studied your steps ,

1) the Acer_MBR_F10_Repair.zip .. Was needed .

2) The 1690FIX.bat , its a fix for windows updates .... Not needed .

3) Disabled fast boot ... looks as the most critical than all ,
because looks equivalent with " Enable D2D " Bios option .

What this function do , are to ignore or not , boot settings that forces other partitions to boot .
In other words , its like Enable /Disable of the ACER boot manager.


If it is as "D2D disable " or at your model " fast boot enabled "
it does the same function ...
In both cases , the boot becomes just a bit faster , because the boot manager stays disabled .

I am very happy for you ..

 

Well, thanks again.

Backup disks are made now, am using it to write this, soon it will go back my niece, she will be thrilled. I will tell her that it was fixed mostly by a gentleman from Greece.

This computer works very fast in spite of the small amount of ram. Might not need more.

 

Well in my case , when i managed to restore anything on my laptop ,
I moved one step forward , replaced the HDD with a larger one ,
and made an actual replicate of the original .

And kept the original as is , in a safe place .

The fate of the mechanical HDDs are to fail and die .

Some one could consider this as overprotection ,
but from my point its something that makes me feel good ,
and thats all that counts .

@login1234
Regards to your niece , she is lucky having an knowledgeable uncle ..

 

Hi, Kiriakost. Been gone from here a while, busy, but just wanted to say Merry Christmas and may God bless.

 

Merry Christmas and may God bless to you also friend ..

I know that you ACER box are a pleasurable item, as it is fully functional from every aspect ..

 

This download file is considered threat by Norton Internet Security.
Look here

 

The actual program looks safe( see here for analysis ), so I replaced the download link with a link to download.com's page for the program.

 

Thanks,

But with all the malware out there, I am not comfortable with anything that Norton says is a keystroke logger. I do appreciate your taking the time to check it out.

 

I downloaded it. As you pointed out, Jotti found nothing, also virscan.org found nothing, VirusTotal showed 2/41 positives, Symantec and PC Tools, kaspersky found nothing, MBAM ignores it locally, Avast Ignores it locally, and ESET online ignores it.

So.....probably a false positive. EH?

 

People .. every software that uses code , that has to do with boot record writing , most of the times considered as " An potential enemy " from most anti virus scanners ..

Simple as that ...

The good news are that now I have finally a copy of the mbrwrdos
So you can use this Acer old tool , so to activate the boot manager ,
with out using third party tools .

http://ax1rebuild.net23.net/mbrwrdos.zip

Warning !! If you do not trust the Avira Anti virus ,
this file could be an atomic bomb to you ...

 

Thanks. Got it. Thanks to kiriakost and mikifin. MBAM and Avast on this computer say it is OK.

 

Your are welcome my friend ...

If I had this file , long time back , I would not Buying Acronis disc Director !!
And I would had saved , some hard earned cash .

Any way , now I have it all ..

Best regards to all ..

 

You, my good sir, are my hero! My BenQ Joybook recently crashed and I couldn't get the Alt-F10 option to work to get into the PQSERVICE partition, nor could I find a way to make it visible (I'm quite a noob at all this). Thinking I was smart, I installed Windows XP from a Dell recovery cd I had lying around from a previous cd. Of course, a lot of stuff didn't work anymore and I had to reconsider my own smartness... But thanks to OSloader, I finally managed to start the BenQ recovery process. So thank you very much!!

 

Kiriakost, you've saved another one.

 

That was the plan , to save many

Drink an beer in my good health, for the stubborn Greek ,
who totally dissected the Erecovery secret ..

Best regards to all , and Yes I do share your happiness.




.

 

Hi guys!!

I have a question regarding an Extensa 4620...It will boot to a blinking
white curser...If I run the fix MBR from MS recovery console will this restore
the machines ability to boot.

I'm certain the HDD is ok...no file system damage, and I put another HDD from
a Toshiba Laptop and it almost booted into Windows until it BSOD'd. This
leads me to believe the MBR is not configured correctly...Thanks in
advance for any help!! sealteam36

 

Hi,

how did you verify that your HDD is ok?

Michael

 

I used crystal disk to read the SMART data, also
hooked it up to my main machine via a usb>SATA
adapter.

Thanks for your reply...I used the third party Acer_MBR_F10_Repair
by copying it to the hard disk manually while connected to another machine, then re-inserting it and booting via a Bart PE disk, then I executed the MBRWRWIN.EXE without the batch file via run and voila' it restored the
Master Boot Record and we were back into Windows!!

Still not sure what caused it in the first place, even after a virus scan with
Eset!! Couldn't have done it without that file...thanks guys!!

Daniel

 

"The Factory default image DVD , can recover busted Acer boot record , by just installing it on the laptop...... ( Alt - F10 on boot not function)

No way people .. The Factory default image DVD, made by your computer, does not do that . "


I have question on this. I had made recovery disc myself. Now when I try to use it, everything works like it should be. Screen comes of langauge selection and then asks for C drive data back up etc and then copies all files. Then gives message restore complete click ok to restart system.
After this message comes 'operating system not found'.

Also alt f10 dosen't work as additional note.

What is the issue please.