Major Problems with my Aspire 5920G

i got a new laptop for chistmas, took it to a mates house, and he installed halo for me (the game, so we could multiplay) when downloading a crack for it, it crashed, maybe cause of spyware. wouldnt start again no matter what he tried

he assured me all we needed to do was use his vista Ultimate DVD to reinstal vista (i know nothing bout PCs i took his word for it) we did so, and afterwards i it said something like: failed to boot drivers referred to GRMBL 4 DOS and wouldnt run properly. he then reinstalled vista AGAIN on my other partition.

when restarted he got asked which vista he wanted to run (it showed 2) after running the only one that worked, he formatted my D drive (said it would clean out the faulty vista installation he did) and that was that. at the same time, he deleted some small partition (not the 3.6GB one, something else) cause he said it was useless.

now after scrolling thru some forums i read i need to hit ALT+F10 to get back to factory setting (which are on the 3.6GB partition?) but nothing happens.

i dont have any recovery DVDs, cause i didnt have any burnable DVDs when i first started vista, and didnt think to make them afterwards (dont i feel like an idiot)

can someone Please tell me what to do in simple engish to get back to my factory defaults?

i thank you in advance.

jordan kay.

 

You cannot use the ALT-F10 method because Acer uses a custom MBR for that, and since you reinstalled Vista, it rewrote the custom MBR. Your best bet to recover to Factory Defaults is to use the Recovery CD/DVDs.

There are ways to rebuild the MBR, I don't know the exact threads but search for PQSERVICE and you might find something.

Try http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=11476&highlight=PQSERVICE

 

but i dont have the DVDs.

can i ask Acer for them or Download them anywhere?

 

Yes you can ask acer for recovery DVDs.They will charge $15 for delivery

 

You could ask someone on the forums to provide you with the MBR record. I did that with Acronis TrueImage. I made a backup of the hard drive and when I perform a restore I have the option of restoring Track 0 & MBR, PQSERVICE, C, D. So I restored Track 0 & MBR and I got ALT-F10 working again.

However I do not know how to just backup the MBR, it seems you have to back it up with some other partition.

 

and i just mail them this? or do i have to ring them?

 

You have to call them up and tell them you want to buy a set of Recovery CDs for your Aspire 5920G.