Wierd Acer eRecovery problem

I have been working on a few Acer computers recently, laptops and desktops, mainly Aspire series models. Ive been wiping the hard disks completely with some software that writes zeros to the whole hard disks, then using the disks you make with the acer eRecovery software to restore the machines to factory. The problem is that after doing this, the eRecovery software is missing from the programs menu, and the recovery partition has not been restored either so I cant use the alt-F10 method. Also, some of the machines will go through the initial setup menu (XP or Vista depending on model), and then will show a message box saying that the install isn't complete, and leaves the machine unusable. The same thing happens when I run the recovery from the recovery partition rather than the disks. This basically means that after recovering the system once there's no way to recover it again should it be needed.
Does anyone know how to sort this problem? Is it something Acer have done on purpose to stop people recoering more than once? Im pretty much stuck here so any answers would be helpful.

 

Acer laptops use a custom Master Boot Record (MBR) that allows you to use the Alt-F10 to initialize the recovery procedure. Also Alt-F10 uses the hidden PQSERVICE partition found on the hard drive.

When you zero'd the disk you not only erased the custom MBR which is needed for Alt-F10, but you also erased the recovery partition (PQSERVICE)

Now when you use the recovery CD's you are only restoring Windows, and not the custom MBR and PQSERVICE

 

did you do this before you formatted the drive ?
When the System CD and Recovery CD are not available, you can create them by
using this feature.
1 Boot to Windows XP.
2 Press Alt + F10 to open the Acer eRecovery Management utility.
3 Enter the password to proceed. The default password is six zeros.
4 In the Acer eRecovery Management window, select Recovery settings and
click Next.
5 In the Recovery settings window, select Burn image to disk and click Next.
6 In the Burn image to disk window, select 1. Factory default image or
2. Application CD and click Next.
7 Follow the instructions on screen to complete the process.
this will save a complete image of xp from the drive as it was released from Acer.

this is the first thing you are asked to do when you start your pc/laptop for the first time.bit of a no brainer if you don't

you can also do the app's disk as well which would have empowering tek junk on it.why you would want that back is beyond me.