eRecovery Alt + F10 question

Hi

I have an Acer 5626 that came preloaded with Vista Business. I have downgraded to XP Pro. The hidden Vista partition is still intact. I know that if I want to restore that Vista partition in future, I must boot and press Alt + F10.

My question is simply this, what happens once I've pressed Alt + F10 ? Will it automatically start the restore procedure for Vista? Or will I get a menu from which I can choose different options? Is there a cancel option to opt out? Or is it a case that once you've pressed Alt + F10 .... there is no turning back?


I also noticed I have "Network boot" enabled in BIOS. Is this something I can disable? I assume this was used by Acer technicians when they configured the laptop?

Thanks

 

i've had an aspire for 2months now and just got it in time before thay loaded Vista.(god i feel lucky)when i first started the laptop i was given the option to burn a bootable copy of xp pro i have used this once already to clean all the empowering tech off my laptop.on my mates laptop he used the Alt+F10 option and got the options to exit,repair or re'install.
if you use a network then switch of the lan option i had wake up on lan switched on and my laptop would wake up when the wife switched her laptop on.though we had a ghost

 

The reason ALT-F10 isn't working is because you reformatted your Vista Business and installed Windows XP Profession. By doing so you have erased Acer's custom MBR (Master Boot Record) which allows the use of ALT-F10 for recovery.

You can repair the MBR, but your best bet is to use the Recovery Discs that came with your laptop. and if you didn't get recovery discs you can probably make them if you didn't erase the PQSERVICE partition which is the recovery partition.

 

Vestige, I never said Alt+F10 is not working. I just asked whether I'll see a screen with options,or whether the Vista recovery would start automatically and as Hoggie said, there's a menu. Thanks for feedback though.

 

Since you are asking about what happens when you press ALT+F10 I am assuming you have never done it (to know if it still works or not ) but what vestige told you is correct in every way. If your notebook came with vista business and you downgraded to a non factory installed XP pro your custom MBR that allows ALT+F10 to work is gone. I know this because when I briefly took MCE off of my aspire 5102 and put XP pro on it the custom MBR was gone and ALT+F10 was also gone. I had to set pqservice to be an active partition so that it would boot and I could restore MCE. There is a way to replace ALT+F10 functionality however using certain files from the pqservice partition.

As far as I remember when you press ALT+F10 it will take you to the recovery console, from there you can start the recovery of the factory installed windows or you can cancel the operation.

 

Thanks. I do appreciate all the feedback from everyone. My Alt + F10 is working, since I downgraded to an Acer version of XP Pro which included the eRecovery software. I also initially created factory default Acer eRecovery Vista DVD's.

If the Vista partition on the h/drive somehow gets damaged or removed, can I still use the Acer eRecovery Vista DVD I burned on day 1? Or would that DVD somehow need to access that hidden Vista partition in some way to work?

 

i had a lok at all the Acer data sheets and the dvd shold hold a complete copy of windows.if you burnt a bootable dvd on day one.and a dvd with all the third party software on it and all your drivers.......and after a long search around the Acer site i have found all the info in the handbook

 

OK, so if I lose the hidden partition, my Acer DVD I burned will do the trick. Great. I also burned a 2nd DVD for applications only, using the eRecovery software.