Help Utilizing Recovery Partition without eRecovery..

So I just got my laptop (in signature) a week ago.

In short, Vista was already acting up before I tried to backup. I know, it was probably my fault, oh well.

Long story: It worked fine for a little while and then the Network and Sharing section of the OS just basically died (does not function any more, weird error messages, though I can still access the internet :/), System Properties won't display my hardware components, and assorted other bugs and errors all started occurring. I got BSODs, explorer crashed, etc.
Weird stuff.
So anyway, I tried loading up the eRecovery software to burn a factory disk so I could try and do it all over again. But everytime I loaded up any part of the Empowering Technology software, the "Framework" would crash, bringing down the application as well. It would crash ten seconds after starting, and I couldn't find a remedy.
So I uninstalled the entire Empowering Technology package. Yeah, probably pretty dumb there even though it was virtually broken.
And I can't figure out how to reinstall it, if possible.
SO. Now I've done some small repartitioning with my C: drive (and that D drive, didn't know it was for backups in the beginning -_-), but nothing to effect the two small partitions on either end of the primary partitions, so I think they are still fully intact.

What I want to know is if there is a way to burn a factory disk or run a fresh factory install (or clean install?) without that eRecovery software that Vista decided to kill. OR. If somebody knows how to reinstall the Empowering Technology stuff so it works.

I have tried the second option myself, no dice, maybe I'm doing it wrong. I went to Acer's website and found my model number and tried to install the stuff but then the programs said I wasn't on an Acer machine, and eRecovery wasn't an available piece of software anyways.

These forums have been immeasurably helpful in my deciding on a laptop and my understanding of a couple other things, hopefully you Acer guys can come through.

Any insight is appreciated, I am almost on the verge of wiping Vista and replacing it with Linux, I'm so disappointed. Again, it's probably my fault, sorry.

Thanks!

 

So I'm bumping this for two reasons:
1) To bump it.
2) I've fixed the problems the OS was having, but I am still going to attempt a dual-boot scenario with Linux, so I want this backup disk in case anything goes wrong.

All I want to know is how to burn a factory-recovery disk from the hidden partition without eRecovery software, or how to reinstall the Empowering Technology suite.

Again, thank you for any contributions.

 

have you tried D2D recovery options using Alt F10 at boot?

 

No I didn't, but I'll assume that doing so will work because...

After partitioning and installing Ubuntu, the GRUB loader it comes with allows me to actually select to boot into the recovery partition! Which is nice, knowing I have a backup plan now if everything goes wrong.

Thanks for the shortcut though, hkeyzer, just in case.