Recovery: Need original partitions sizes?

This is for an Aspire 4530 laptop.

I made recovery CDs when I purchased the laptop. But then I repartitioned the drive to have more data partitions. The computer worked just fine for over a year, but the imaging software that I tried corrupted the boot sector and the OS partition (C). Now I found that the recovery CDs don't work.

If I repartition back to the original drive structure, will the recovery CDs work?

 

What does it mean they don't work?
Recovery refuses to run and presents you with a nice error code or they just do nothing?
There are two option for e-recovery- one should work with system partition only (not touching anything else) the other returns the whole notebook to the state in which it had left the factory- meaning same partition size(s) and HDD is empty (apart from the OS)

 

The first CD boots and begins the recovery process. After 10 minutes, it then asks for the "next" CD (there are only two). After some small activity, it asks for the next CD again, and again, and again. There is no error message. The progress figures show about 50% complete at this stage. The C partition was at 69.5 GB, but is now at 97 GB, and is marked as "Unallocated", and is perhaps the cause of the recovery failure. The remaining partitions are intact.

When the CDs boot, its asks you to choose the language, then there are two choices for recovery:
1) Restore System from factory Default
2) Restore System from User's backup (this is disabled)
Choosing (1) gets one instructions to remove all external storage ( I have none), and then it gives the destination drive and its size (97 GB). Another warning that all data will be erased, and then there si a DOS screen giving the partition it will drive to. Then it begins restoring the partition.

I note that the Source is POP....61.001 and that the last three digits increment - up to 079 at50%. There is no change when the 2nd CD is inserted.

 

You have to have two partitions not necessarily the original size, System partition (C:\ ) and Data partition (D:\ )for recovery to work.

 

OK, but When I enlarged the C partition, the D partition moved. Does that matter?

The original partition sizes were:
10 GB - unnamed - I assume the recovery software)
69.5 GB - C drive
69.5 GB - D Drive

 

What I meant was, you need two partitions only for the recovery to work. In your original post you mentioned more than one data partitions you have created.
Are you trying to do a factory restore?

 

I am trying to restore from the Recovery CDs. As I explained, there is only one option enabled when I boot the CD- Restore System from factory Default
Update: I managed to resize the existing partitions to their original sizes. However, recovery from the CDs did not work. I can only conclude that they were not properly created.

 

The great part is that the boot process now repeatedly looks to the hard drive (frequent, period disk LED flicker). Previously, it looked once and then sat idle - no LED flicker.

 

Sorry mate, I'm out of ideas wait for the answers from more experienced members.

 

resizing the partition would require that you reformat the partition into a bootable drive. I would personally just use bootsect to do it from command line. as a matter of fact, this is how I made my own custom recovery partition so that my system restore would not involve many unnecessary programs from being loaded.

 

Well, congrats on going that far; I would not take the chance. I think the 10GB partition holds the bootstrap and has (had) the recovery software.

I now find that the DVD drive likely scratches the media. That would explain why I can only boot a DVD or CD a few times. That loud high pitch squeal is likely the drive scratching the media. Pity. This computer is only 18 months old and used on;y hours a month, The drive was used for very many fewer hours.
Go figure.

 

Well, thanks for trying. I never expected this difficulty, and I'm really disappointed by it. This will be my last laptop.