Need some help with Acer Disc Formatting

Hi guys,

I'm an HP user myself, but my girlfriend has an older ACER Aspire 3000 series (about 2.5 years old). I recently reformatted it, and did a clean install using the recovery discs...

Everything seemed to go fine, until I noticed in the disc manager that the Hard Disc has 3 partitions... one is like 3GB, and the other 2 are about 27GB each... One is the Main C: Drive, and the other is called "Acer Data". This is driving me nuts! She only has 27GB of usable storage on her computer, and I can't figure out how to consolidate the 2 Partitions to make 1 large one. Can anyone please help? It's a 60GB harddrive, and I'd hate to see that go to waste for "Acer data" (whatever that is).

Also, the disc was formatted in FAT32... Is there any reason Acer chooses that file system over NTFS? I'd prefer to format the drive with NTFS... I'm just concerned that if I reformat the drive I'll lose all the drivers and stuff. The computer currently doesn't have any programs installed or any data that needs backing up, so I'm not concerned about that stuff.

Any suggestions on how to consolidate the partitions and format to NTFS would be greatly appreciated.

 

Usually ACER ships their notebooks with 2 visible and 1 hidden partition - C:\, D:\ (DATA) = visible/usable partitions and PQSERVICE = hidden recovery partition.
On C:\ is usually installed the OS.
On D:\ or DATA partition ACER usually place drivers and ACER Empowering technology software(or ACER bloatware).
On PQSERVICE, the hidden partition, is the..well the recovery partition. I won't touch that if I were you.

So basically the Data partition is a normal partition and it can be used for whatever you want. It is formatted in FAT system...well no idea why but you can format it in NTFS, no problem, just backup the drivers and stuff you want to keep on a CD or on your C: drive.

To merge the C:\ and D:\ you can use Vista's build-in partition manager or a third-party partition manager or a linux partition manager, whatever you want

 

Yes, that's exactly it. The 3GB partition is called "PQSERVICE".

Where do I find the built in partition manager to merge the 2?

I wouldn't mind deleting the 3GB recovery partition, since we still have the original back-up/recovery discs, AND the ones that we burned. So we have 2 copies of the recovery discs.

Also, they are all formatted as FAT32, not NTFS... which I found a little strange. How do I back up the drivers?

Thank you.

 

To start using the build-in partition manager in Vista just go to Control Panel--->Administrative Tools->Create and format hard disk partitions.

If you're not familiar with partition managers I suggest you do a little research online, partitioning is easy to do but you must know what are you doing.

The partitions are maybe in FAT32 because the notebook is old..no idea really.

The drivers are usually located on D:\ in a Drivers or DRV folder or something similar. You can download them online on support.acer-euro.com if you lose them so it's not a big deal. If you want to back them up anyway just burn them to CD or something.

If you want to MERGE all the partitions I suggest you delete PQSERVICE, then merge C: and D: then resize the new drive(which will be C: ) to use the unallocated space left from PQSERVICE deletion. If you decide to do it this way, the data located on C: and D: should left intact so no backup will be actually required. BUT you can't format to NTFS if you do the merging unless you decide to wipe out your entire hard drive but you can't do that from Vista, you'll need third-party software and a live-cd of some sort.
Again, make sure you know what are you doing!

 

The computer OS is Windows XP Home Edition... Not Vista! Is it possible to change the file system to NTFS through XP?

I am familiar with Partitioning drives... but I'm just not well experienced with it. I've done it on my own computer several times, but this Acer functions differently. And yes, the computer was manufactured in 2003. It's pretty old! But she bought it new in 2006 for really cheap because it was "back-stock".

As for the drivers... I believe they are all located on the "System" disc that's bundled with the computer. The System disc contains all drivers and applications that come pre-installed on the computer... so do I still need to back the drives up?! For some reason, on the Acer website There isn't any support for these notebooks (Aspire 3000 series, exact model is 3004WLCi).

My other question is how do I access the D: partition?! It doesn't show up at all in "my computer" and I don't know how to access it!

Thank you, rep points will be added!

 

Well when you format a partition in XP you can format it in NTFS so the answer is yes, you can. BUT you cannot convert your C:\ partition in NTFS file system, setting up file systems is only possible with format. Since you have XP, you'll need a third-party partition manager as XP doesn't have any.

Drivers for Aspire 3000 series can be downloaded from here, both Vista and XP

You cannot see the D: partition in "My computer"? Then where did you see it?

 

I see the D: in the Disc Management section. It shows the disc (Disc 1), the 3 partitions and their names.

OK, I'm going to try a 3rd Party Partition application...

 

This is odd, the D: shouldn't be hidden. Is the partition empty?

 

If you convert any partition in to NTFS , the hidden partition will not be able to create any recovery task.
ACER rule ..


So , if you do not care about Disk to Disk recovery , do a complete format.

Beware that even the ACER CDs , are not able to restore the laptop , if the file system are NTFS .

 

Hey guys, bad news... I totally f'ed up the computer.

I used a program called "Partition Magic 8" that actually works quite well... except for one problem: I used it to merge all 3 partitions (including the one with the recovery image). Well... long story short, the Aspire did not like that at all. Basically, I inadvertently deleted the entire drive, including the recovery... now I need to find a way to re-install windows somehow. Geesh... I should have listened to your warning ATG... I thought I knew what I was doing, but I guess I was wrong. Totally screwed now. Luckily, the computer is pretty old, and isn't worth much to us, but I still need to fix it!

As I said, I've been a HP user for like 8 years now... I know those computer well, but Acer just... is not right. I was under the impression that the recovery image was on the "recovery discs". Logical thinking right? For instance, on my HP pavilion I deleted the recovery partition on my hard-drive because I had it backed up on DVD-ROM. Now, I figured it was the same for Acer. Apparently not so.

Oh well... I have an extra OEM disc of Windows XP Professional here (though the computer came with XP Home), I figure I might as well try it to see if I can get an OS back on the computer, and then re-install the drivers from the recovery discs. Do you think that might work?!

 

Why don't you just make sure the drive is formatted as FAT32, then boot from the recovery disks? I think that should start the recovery going.

 

I tried to boot from the recovery discs... no go.

Apparently, the discs only work WITH the recovery partition on the drive. If there is no recovery image then the discs won't boot. Great, isn't it?

When I try to boot from the recovery discs I get as far as selecting a language, and then it gives me the dreaded " cannot find preload.tag for setboot.ini" error message and just reboots to a black screen with a blinking white line in the top left corner. It's a mess. I'm pretty sure I wiped out everything required for a successful re-install when I merged all the partitions using Partition Magic... I think I have to start from scratch here, and rebuild the OS manually.

 

You tried both sets of recovery disks you said you had? If they both don't work, then yes, you need to start from scratch.

 

Wow man, sorry it didn't work and you have faced these problems.

As paten said, if you format the drive in FAT32 again and use a special CD called ACER Format CD(or something similar) the recovery CDs should work. I don't remember where this "Format CD" could be downloaded from exactly, I'll try to find it and let you know.

This CD prepares the partitions in order the Recovery CD to work so I think you can still repair you computer with this CD and using your own Recovery CDs.

 

Yes, I tried both. But I believe they are the same. One set is the stock set that came with the computer, and the other set is the back up set that my girlfriend burned herself when she first got the computer.

 

Split the partition in two parts of FAT 32.

Name the first ACER .. and the second as ACERDATA

Then start over with the disks .

Disable in Bios the D2D function.

 

Hi, do I partition the drive through a boot-disc tool/program? I have the windows "ultimate boot disc V. 4.1.1"... Otherwise, I'm unsure how to re-partition the drive.

Currently, the drive is one big FAT32 partition.

If this doesn't work, will I have to re-install windows XP manually w/an OEM disc?

Thanks.

 

OK - When I boot from the WinXP pro OEM disc I have it says:

Windows XP Professional Setup:

The Following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

Use the UP and DOWN ARROW keys to select an item in the list.

-To set up Windows XP on the selected item, press ENTER
-To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C
-To delete the selected partition, press D

57232 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
C: Partition2 (ACER) [FAT32] 57232 MB (53962 MB Free)

So... does anyone know what the best thing to do is?! I don't want to go much further in case I really screw this whole thing up.

Thank you (I repped all you guys just for responding)

 

Anyone? Well... How about this: Can I reformat the drive to NTFS when I re-install windows? Will all the acer drivers still work? Or will I totally screw up the computer?

I'm concerned about doing this, because apparently Acer favors FAT32, which can not exceed 32 GB partitions... Now I realize why they have the drive partitioned out that way to begin with (still don't understand why they don't just use NTFS). The options on the windows xp install don't have the option of creating 2 parititions... it only says "convert to NTFS" or "install windows on current partition".

Any response greatly appreciated.

 

If you're using normal XP CD then installation is easy. Yes, you can reformat to NTFS, the file system has nothing to do with the drivers, the only incompatibility is with the recovery cds, apparently.
Windows XP partition manager is pretty basic, not much to do there. You CAN delete and create partitions but you can format only the one where Windows will be so If you create 2 partitions, when the installation process is over you'll need to format manually the other partition(s).
So, if you already have one partition created, with ALL hard disk space used then just set up Windows XP there, do a NTFS format(normal, NOT Quick, quick format basically mean delete).

 

If you haven't had any success with this yet, I've formatted about 40 or 50 Aspires in the manner you're looking at. I'm doing one right now.
1) use a XP Installtion disk - select the option to install XP - then delete all the partitions (it will find that you already have one installed on your C drive, and will show you the D and hidden partitions).
2) create a new partition in the entire size of the drive - select Quick NTFS format
3) Install XP on the new partition
4) Go to the acer website for your model (3503?) - where you can get all the drivers - if you don't have access to the web from another computer, make sure you have all the drivers downloaded before you do all of this. I copy them all to a usb key and install them one at a time (make sure you have a copy of winzip or winrar ready to install on your reformatted laptop as well - makes the process much easier).

Note: you won't get downloads of some of the utilities off the Acer website, such as the DVD / CD burning software, but nothing that can't be replaced with Nero.

Once you get the networked connected, redo all your XP SP2 and 3 updates.

Cooking time - about 2 hours or less at 350 degrees.

Enjoy.

 

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Well... I ended up completely re-installing the OS. I just popped in a copy of WinXP SP2 and booted from the CD. I had all the drivers from the Acer recovery discs. So everything worked fine. It took a while... but I ended up getting it fixed.

I did keep the drive as a FAT32... just in case.

Thanks again.

 

FYI - there are not issues in converting the drives from FAT32 to NTFS on an Aspire laptop - I've never had a problem with it.

simply use the Dos "convert" command.

From the microsoft website:

How to convert a FAT volume or a FAT32 volume to NTFS
Note Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion is minimal, we recommend that you perform a backup of the data on the volume that you want to convert before you start the conversion.

To convert an existing FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS, follow these steps:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the drive that you want to convert:
convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs
For example, type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:
convert e: /fs:ntfs
Note If the operating system is on the drive that you are converting, you will be prompted to schedule the task when you restart the computer because the conversion cannot be completed while the operating system is running. When you are prompted, click YES.
When you receive the following message at the command prompt, type the volume label of the drive that you are converting, and then press ENTER:
The type of the file system is FAT.
Enter the current volume label for drive drive letter
When the conversion to NTFS is complete, you receive the following message at the command prompt:
Conversion complete
Quit the command prompt.