Restoring Acer Aspire to factory settings - HELP!!

I have a acer aspire 5100-3357 that I bought a month ago, it came with two partitions C & D. I accidentally formated the c drive when I was trying to upgrade from windows vista home premium to vista ultimate.

It was a mistake and I need to restore my machine back to how it was when I got it, with all the software it came with. The manual says I should press Alt + F10 at the boot up screen but this doesn't work. I know there is a hidden partition that has all the software on it, I just can't get to it.

Does anyone know how I can restore my machine back to factory setting?

 

Im not sure whether the hidden partition with all the drivers, utilities and Vista image resides on the C: or D: drive. There is a small file on the D: drive that is hidden, but it seems to only take up 489 bytes (which seems really small), its called erData. I think it uses files on the C: drive to recover your system. Unless the hidden partition on the D: drive is hidden deeper than I know how to access.

I think you need a recovery disc from Acer

 

Thanks so much for your response.

I'd love the restore disks but I'm having difficulty communicating with acer as although my computer was bought in the states I'm not there now. I took it in to acer's support office here locally and they told me that my 1 year warranty does not cover software, therefore since I wiped the c drive, they are quoting me some big price just to look at it to get it back to its factory settings.

When I right click on my computer ->manage->disk management I can see the third partition. It's about 8.79 GB, the name is PQSERVICE, I think this is where the stuff is. It'll be such a pity to pay all that money when the stuff was on my machine all along. I sent acer an email through their site but I haven't gotten a response yet.

I really need help!!!

 

I have a 5610 and the following works for the Partition Restore on mine:

restart of F8 before windows starts logging on. At the very bottom of the DOS like window, there should be an option and I've forgotten what it states exactly, but if you will move the down arrow to get there, push Enter and you should see a Menu of thing you can ask the machine to do for you. System Restore, current configuration, and what you want. Restore the system to factory specs. Maybe I'm forgetting exactly what but you should be able to figure that out.

Did my system that way today as it was getting grouchy.

 

Thanks for your response.

For the 5100 it's f2 but that only takes you into the bios and there is nothing there i recognise that will help recovering back the system to it's manufacturer state.

I thought of downloading acer's empowering technology software in the hope that the eRecovery can help me but when I get to the site I see everything else but eRecovery for download (just my luck!)

If anyone can help me please send a response... Thanks

 

Did you not make the backup DVD's? Also, how are you still booting the machine if you wiped the C drive?

 

in the bios is D2D switched on ?
did you burn the dvd's when you first started the laptop ?
you can contact acer for a recovery disc, but don't hold your breath.

 

I formatted the hard drive in error when i was trying to upgrade from home premium to Ultimate. So now I have ultimate as my current os. It wiped off everything so I have none of the software that came with acer originally.

I really just want to put it back to how it was. Being a novice I did not burn a DVD restore disk when I got it, (I've had the machine for a month). There is a hidden partition with all the info from which my machine can be restored.


I wrote acer and finally got a reponse but they are telling me to use alt + f10 which doesn't work - remember the eRecovery was wiped too and I can't find it anywhere on acer's site to download.

In the BIOS the D2D is enabled.


The saddest thing is that I can see the hidden partition PQservice that has all the software to restore the files but for the life of me, I don't know how to use it to restore the system...

 

Oh great! I got it to work!!!

-I installed xp on one of my partitions and installed partition magic on it (because partition magic it didn't work too well with the vista ultimate)

- Then I saw the hidden partition , right click then choose set as active

Then i restart and the system boot up from that partition. That's it !!

Now I have my vista home premium with all the software from acer.

I'm so ecstatic !!

Thanks guys!

 

so you are now one happy bunny.nice one