Acer Aspire One System Restore Discs Free Download
Ortiz Ullery
This is a long post. I've been through many steps already. I'm no tech expert but I read directions well (most of the time) and my knowledge comes from working through the problems as they come up. I'm using a newer laptop to make the various discs and drives.
I have an 08 Acer Aspire 5742 running windows 7 hp. I had some deep rooted malware and decided to do a system restore. The system restore worked and the first thing I did was windows update. There were 192 updates and it took a couple of hours for them to download and install. After the restart when it was down to the last 5 updates to be installed, a message appeared on the screen stating that the updates failed and the entire group of updates would be rolled back. Eight hours later nothing had changed. The screen looked exactly the same. I don't know if I did the wrong thing but I assumed the rollback was in an endless loop and made a decision to do the recovery with my OEM Acer discs.
There is one system disc and three recovery disks with the Acer set. I don't know if all recovery discs work exactly the same but in case they don't I'll include the information that came up onscreen. After the system disc is inserted and windows loads files the Acer Recovery Management box options are -
Restore OS to factory defaults - Restore OS to factory default status. All data on C: drive will be deleted. (This was the option I've been attempting to use)
Restore OS and retain user data -Restore only the OS of your PC to the factory defaults. Files from your user accts will be transferred to C:\backup. This option will not remove malware. (When I tried this: No user data has been found on your computer)
Completely restore computer to factory defaults - Restore your computer to factory default status. All data in the hidden partition and on the system partition will be restored. Before restoring, please delete any data on the hard disk (When I tried this: Please remove all files from your hard disk before starting. This function will not work if there are any files on the hard disk.)
So clicking on option 1 there is the notice box of what occurs. The box changes to "Restore Destination"
Hard Drive Name: ST500LM000-1EJ162 ATA device
Partition Label: Acer
Partition Size 8.0 GB
Copying files from disc.
Please insert recovery disc 1.
Copying files from disc
Insert Disc 2.
Copying files from disc
Insert Disc 3 (It's at 80% progress)
Copying files from disc.
Shortly after the disc starts running a message box comes up stating "There is insufficient space on the disc for the temporary files required for this operation"
Press Ok. Please wait a moment. Acer boot screen then the dos "BOOTMGR is missing. Press Control + Alt + Delete"
Pressing C + A + D loops back to the Acer boot screen and back to "BOOTMGR etc."
The original drive crapped out and I replaced it with a 500gb hybrid drive. I partitioned the hard drive for the windows 8 upgrade that was offered when I bought the laptop. I rarely used it and it stayed a 20 gb partition. Thinking the partition might be the problem I downloaded mini partition wizard tool into my new laptop and copied the files onto a CD, a DVD and a flash drive. All had errors. The CD failed. I tried another, it sounded like it was going to boot up then went back to the BOOTMGR screen. I got out a blank dvd, copied the .iso partition file to it. The message onscreen: Virtual hard disk files can't be mounted from image files or from removable media that isn't formatted with NTFS files.
I dug around and finally found my flash drives. The flash drive had a default FAT32 and I changed it to NTFS (based on the message above) and formatted it. I copied the partition file. The message onscreen: An OS wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an OS. In all the above attempts I made sure I changed the boot order in the bios.
I forgot that I had an external case for a hard drive so I took out the hard drive from the Acer and slaved it to my new laptop. I bought it when the original Acer hard drive became corrupt to try to look at the files. Here I am trying to figure it out the hard way and a less complicated (for me) solution was within reach. Sure enough there were 4 partitions with only 8 gb for the Acer. Don't know how that happened. I'm considering wiping the drive completely and using the Acer discs to start all over again.
press F12 at boot and choose CD or USB
at the desktop
select your HDD
right click on your HDD icon and choose delete all patitions and click on yes and then apply
-all-partitions.html#howto
Thank you for your help. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, bad cold kept my head and focus clogged for a week. I've got to catch up on a bunch of stuff and I'll try this out in the next couple of days and report back.
I got a bootable CD disk from my son who EaseUS partition maker. I put the CD in and it booted to a Windows icon and stayed there for about 30 minutes. I inadvertantly hit the side of the laptop which opened the CD player and a message came up verifying the cd/dvd player had been opened while in recovery. I closed it and it restarted back to the windows icon and eventually to a screen that currently says:
I didn't know what to do so I pressed enter thinking it would take me to the description you gave. It went back to a command prompt with the bootmgr missing message as it did before. I went through the process again and got back to the startup settings screen and I haven't touched it since.
I thought, based on the description of how this partition software is supposed to work, that it would give me the partition screen as it does when I open the program on this current laptop I'm using. I don't know what I do with this. Your ideas?
I forgot that I had an external case for a hard drive so I took out the hard drive from the Acer and slaved it to my new laptop. I bought it when the original Acer hard drive became corrupt to try to look at the files. Here I'm try to figure it out the hard way and an easier solution was within reach. Sure enough there were 4 partitions with only 8 gb for the Acer. Don't know how that happened. I'm considering wiping the drive completely and using the Acer discs to start all over again.
Because Acer didn't mention what kind it had I did the grim task of carefully pulling it apart as per the Youtube video and took it over to a friend of mine who has a hoard of ram from repairing computers etc. So we looked to see what kind it was and then proceded to "plug and pray" until we found a 2 gig that made it happy.
I just did the Alt. F10 and my System Recovery is now happy with the hard drive settings and both the driver utility and system both complain about no burner. Also System recovery is demandingI use 3 disks which is a surprise compared to the Acer 2 disk set for BOTH system and driver/utility recovery and other than all of the updates from Microsoft, and what I have removed such as Mcafee which is expired, Microsoft Office Home/Student which is a 60 day trial anyway it still wants 3 disks for the system. I guess since it is still unused and empty and just installed I could probably do a Alt.F10 again and do the Virtual CD trick again or go ahead and recover 3 disk images. At least it is working now.
If the hidden Acer erecovery partition on the hard drive is still intact, the Alt+F10 erecovery method as shown in this video =H2xoMEPfiPQ can be used to re-set your machine to either factory-delivered new condition or factory-delivered but saving your data. This recovery method is activated by the Alt+F10 keyboard combo *before* Windows starts loading, not by any command inside the Windows environment. Jack E/NJ
I tried the Alt. F10 and it started loading files so I shut it down after finding out that works. I also downloaded and installed total mount but Acer eRecovery Management still complains of no Burner present (unable to detect a writable optical drive) Just to clarify the error for the Recovery disk
Personally I think this is absolutly lame providing software that gives you absolutely NO OPTIONS other than forcing you to go out and have to purchase an external burner in a Netbook with no CD ROM/RW!! As it is CD and DVD are becoming a thing of the past and I usually install Windows or other operating systems using a bootable USB! I have never used totalmount before and now I have to learn how to use this vs buying a burner.
With total mounter, make sure you set up a virtual CD/DVD disk folder on your hard drive. Device Mgr should also see that a CD/DVD drive is in fact installed when total mounter is active so that eRecovery Mgt can see it too.
As for not having a real burner in a netbook, it's sort of a transitional thing to save space and money. Sorta like the not having floppy drives anymore. Eventually most laptops won't have them. But if you really wanna/gotta have a real burner, USB plugins are less than $20 with free shipping nowadays. 8^)
After trying total mounter it must of had bugs because when I started trying to use it, it locked up so bad that task manager couldn't even shut it down so after rebooting I tried Virtual CD under a trial use of which only once is all I need and only managed to get the drivers and Utilities backup. Next I created a bootable USB With an OEM version of Win 7 Starter I downloaded where my Acer product keys work on, formated only the main partition and installed. When installation was finished I installed all of the drivers, ePower Management, eRecovery Management, Adobe, etc., leaving out Norton. When I was finished the Acer Logo and background where you sign in using a password was gone and also in eRecovery, the driver feature didn't work with the notice that the driver package wasn't installed. Also since I have never used the recovery disk feature from when I purchased this Netbook new due to the external burner being required I never noticed the hard drive nag saying the hard drive isn't configured for this function. After the reinstallation, I still get the error. There were only two settings in the BIOS before I reinstalled and setting it to the second choice caused the blue screen of death and a rapid reboot after the start ing of windows so I went back in and set it back. Other than going through the miserable task of upgrading the RAM, I know of nothing that was ever set or changed regarding this so called hard drive setting. Right now I'm restoring using the Alt. F10 method due to the drivers for eRecovery not being installed and will be deleteing bloatware when it reboots. Now as for the Recovery disk, and the driver utility disk they are for sale on Acer for $19.00 so since I cant get a proper recovery (other than cloning the hard drive) this is probably a wise investment. I used Win RAR to open the ISO and all I deleted was the Norton before I transfered it to my Win 7 USB and of course after seeing eRecovery was in there I find it VERY disapointing that Acer will not provide a newer version of eRecovery as a download because if you watch the Youtube Videos showing how to do the eRecovery, they are showing a newer version using a flash drive instead of a CD if you have to do a recovery this methode. Just like my RAM, Acer will not provide a 2 GB module or stick, just one. I guess they feel keeping a product running lousy is the proper thing to do!! This mindset most certainly needs improvement! Obviously whoever came up with this mentality was never self employed (I was for 14 years).
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