[navarone9942]

I tried searching to see if this has been asked before but couldn't find anything, so if it has been asked, I'm sorry.

I may have done something exceptionally dumb. Today I tried installing Spiderman 3 after a friend gave me it since he's getting rid of a load of stuff. I get home and put the disc in the drive, autorun comes up, I tell it to install. it gets to a sound file and my pc switches off. I then reboot, try again and same file, the pc switches off again (no blue screen, error or message of any kind, either time) But then whnt the machine starts up again, it gets to the Windows XP load screen and flashes up a blue screen for literally a blink of an eye and resets. i tried in vain to get the machine to boot, as it wouldn't even load safe mode or boot from a cd and every time it reset I couldn't access the iQon system recovery (it did load on about the 4th boot attempt but after about 20 mins of PC-Angel doing nothing it gave the option of recovering but it told me the HDD was unable to be formatted and then quit back to initial boot). I finally managed to find my old XP-sp2 install disc, so i set about reinstalling the OS. The computer works now but I have (obviously) lost all my files but i seem to have a bigger problem, PC-Angel is still inaccessible from the boot menu and XP seems to thing I have 2 HDD's, one is called "local disc (C" and the other is "ACER (E" and I'm a tad scared ACER is the recover partition and when I installed XP it formatted that as well.

So basically my question is "When i installed Xp from the disc, could it have deleted my recovery OS and if so, how do i fix it?"

BTW I'm not the best when it comes to hardware and the likes, I'm more a software guy, just not the really technical software.

[Macboatmaster]

I know this is absolutely no help now, but it is a shame you did not ask before.
We certainly could have saved your personal data for you.

Go Control Panel, Administrative functions, computer management and then on left hand pane, disk management, what is shown in relation to the HDD drives please.

[navarone9942]

Originally Posted by Macboatmaster

I know this is absolutely no help now, but it is a shame you did not ask before.
We certainly could have saved your personal data for you.

Go Control Panel, Administrative functions, computer management and then on left hand pane, disk management, what is shown in relation to the HDD drives please.

i screen capped it
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9963/42464676.png


I'm not really bothered about losing my files because I was in desperate need of clearing the HDD anyway but I was more concerned with making sure it didn't become a wasted £250

[itsjusme]

From the looks of your screenshot, it did format the recovery partition. I dont know if you could possibly recover enough of the data there for it to be useable, but i have used Mini Tool Power Data Recovery to recover a number of drives that had been accidentally formatted or otherwise had problems and wouldnt boot. It is free for personal use and doesnt have restrictions on the amount of data you can recover before you pay, or hijack your data till you do like some programs that offer a "free" trial. It`s worth a shot if there was anything there you would like to have back.

[Macboatmaster]

There is no reason to believe on the evidence available HERE on your screenshot that the install has NOT effected your Acer Recovery partition, as there is hardly any space used.
That partition would have recovered your Acer to the condition that it was in when it was first sold.
In addition to the Windows, you would have had whatever was installed, when it was sold.
More than likely I would have thought Windows, and probably besides the usual padding of the various OEM advertisement software, some free trials. Some laptops of course come with additional software
installed by way of other programs, rather than just free trials and that would be included.

The way to establish this is to go to the Acer site and insert your service tag or ID number found on the case of the laptop and there will be a facility to find what was installed as original. However it will not I think do you any good. As per the last from itsjusme, it seems you have lost it.

Please do not be offended, but apart from your listed experience of Intermediate and your obvious knowledge of screenshot I have no way of knowing your level of knowledge and experience.
Do not please forget the importance of the updates particularly SP3 and the installation of the ANTI-VIRUS. whichever you choose.

Additionally to that, these recovery partitions are OK until the hard drive crashes and then of course they are useless. Once you have installed a good system again, with all your various data.
BACKUP to an external and create a full image, then you do not have the worry.

You may wish to look at my thread here for ideas in the future.
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp...not-start.html

Please do not hesitate to come back if you need with another question.

NB I do not have knowledge of the Mini Tool Power Data Recovery, but usually never run the data recovery tool,on the drive from which you are attempting to recover the data and I would be very cautious about running it on the new Windows installation.

[Macboatmaster]

Further to the above
Here is the standard Acer Recovery Instructions

1. Power on the machine
2. At the white ACER BIOS screen, hold the “Alt” key and press the “F10” key simultaneously to start Acer eRecovery
3. Once eRecovery has loaded, click “Restore to Factory Default Settings”
4. Click “OK” to continue
5. From here, the eRecovery process will update all the data on the C: drive and restore a fully functional factory image (approximately 10 minutes).
6. Once eRecovery has run, press “OK” to reboot unit

HOWEVER I am not certain that even if it has not been formatted there would be any great benefit from what you have NOW.

NOTE
After further research I believe there is a strong possibility that your recovery partition still exists and is not seen by XP Disk Management
I now read that there are two visible partitions on the HDD, one with the Windows etc and one personal data partition named Acer and allocated ORIGINALLY Drive letter D. That would of course have changed now you have formatted and installed XP
See this
Hard disk partitions


Why are there 2 hard drives, C: and D: listed in My Computer? The hard drive is divided (partitioned) into multiple partitions by design. If you look in My Computer you will see two of these partitions, Acer (C and Acerdata (D. Acer (C is where the operating system and all software is installed. Acerdata (D is free to use for storing personal files and folders. This protects your data. If you ever have to reinstall all software, the data in the Acerdata (D will not be erased.
PRECAUTION
Acer does not recommend changing the partitions on the hard disk and any use of tools to view, change or remove partitions is at own risk.
MORE INFORMATION
Besides the visible partitions Acer and Acerdata, other partitions may exist. These contain critical system files or the files necessary for the Acer eRecovery to:

• Reinstall the operating system, setting the system back to the way it was the day you purchased it.
• Create Recovery CD's or DVD's.
• Reinstall the drivers or applications that came preinstalled on the system.

THE ANSWER IS - WHAT is the capacity of the HDD, as against what is shown in Disk Management.

[navarone9942]

1 thing to clarify, the machine isn't a laptop its actually a tower. I have had the pc for little over a year and the friend I bought it from had it for 2 years prior. In the last year I have not seen anything in the system to suggest anything to do with ACER until now.

As for the total size of the HDD, on the drive itself, the size is listed as 160 GB but C: is listed as 145 GB total and E: is listed as 3.77 GB total so that leaves just over 10 GB unaccounted for.

Another note is the system was repaired in a shop about 8 or 9 months ago and they replaced the motherboard, graphics card, RAM and CPU but I can't take it back as the shop has since closed down due to lack of business (I live in the middle of nowhere)

I have re-installed the utility's from the Gigabyte disc (came with new motherboard) and the one I got with the new graphics card. I am (at time of writing) trying the MiniTool Power Data Recovery program ITSJUSTME suggested, so we'll see what it finds.

As I said in the last post, I'm not really bothered about the data I had before as none was really THAT important and the drive was in dire need of cleaning anyway. So my only remaining question is, what is the safest (not easiest) way to make a new recovery partition (if its actually gone) because I really didn't want things like Itunes and the Browser config junk that were in the recovery to begin with.

p.s. I'll post back after the data recovery prog is done with the C drive (in a hour give or take)

[navarone9942]

This is what MiniTools shows after scanning



I'm not really what i need to do now, so...

[itsjusme]

Highlight the desired partition and click on SHOW FILES.

[itsjusme]

Do you have an external drive to recover data to, or can you slave the drive into another machine? If you`re running the program from the same drive you`re trying to recover data from, and recover it to the same drive, you can overwrite data that you may want to save. Somewhere in the docs and instructions for the tool it gives info on this.

So my only remaining question is, what is the safest (not easiest) way to make a new recovery partition (if its actually gone) because I really didn't want things like Itunes and the Browser config junk that were in the recovery to begin with.

The best way i`ve found for recovery is to use an IMAGING program to restore your system. Once you get everything installed and running, tweaked, and setup like you want it, all the junk you dont want stripped away, you can image the installation and restore it in minutes as opposed to hours reinstalling everything from scratch. Restoring the image will restore all your programs, settings....ect , all at one time.
MORE INFO HERE, and a list of some of the imaging programs available, alot of which are free and work very well. The 3 part tutorial in the first link is a good starting point.

[Macboatmaster]

That drive is a Western Digital 160Gb Caviar Blue
Western Digital provide a number of tools including their edition of Acronis True Image.
Here is the link
http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...delno=&lang=en
With that Acronis you can create a True Image of the drive with various options.

If I was in your situation I would start again.
I would forget anything to do with the existing recovery partition - whether it is still available or not.

You have your motherboard drivers, ie: the chipset etc and you have your graphics driver.
If the sound is integrated and the Lan (Network is integrated) then you have no worries about finding the right drivers.

The only note of caution I would issue is - If that Windows installation that WAS ON the HDD was an
ACER OEM and the XP installation CD was NOT provided OR there was a reinstallation CD but it was the Acer one AND you are now using a Microsoft XP CD, then is the product key from the Microsoft
CD available for use.

If that licence from the XP you have NOW used is already in use then it will be detected by Microsoft and their WGA - Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool will block any updates and notify you that the installation is not genuine.

If you attempt to use the Product key from the original ACER XP installation which is presumably on the computer case on a COA label then the XP installation you have made will NOT accept that product key.

Providing that is ALL OK, I would as I have said, start again.
The drive is PATA - that is IDE, so you will have no problems with Windows installation not finding the SATA driver, this is a common problem with an SP2 installation.
To save me a lot of typing see this link I recently ran and start on Page 5 Post 62.
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp...tal-error.html


There is a wealth of imformation on here and together with the other link I sent you for my article - that was on post 5, you will have all the information you need. Obviously you cannot partition your drive as on the link. I would suggest 30Gb for O/S, 100GB for programs and 30Gb (this will be approx) for image and ERUNT etc.

If you follow that advice, you will hopefullly, not find yourself in this situation again, or at least you will be able to recover from it easily.
There is a lot of reading on the threads I have sent you, but such matters as including the recovery console, on your hard drive and slipstreaming your XP SP2 with a SP3 using nLite are invalubale to the ease of recovery when things go wrong.

The fact it is not a laptop - an error for which I apologise, does not really alter matters.

[navarone9942]

Thanks for the links, some good reading there. Sorry I haven't updated, my internet has been rather wonky the last few days and I was out of town anyway. I have decided to forget the recovery, I'll make a new one so its only on the stuff I need and its goin on a different HDD but I will be reading the links so thank you kindly.

[jareck]

Hi, when i got a virus i noticed my recovery disk was missing. I did a google search and found http://www.oemsoftwaresource.com . I ordered a new disk and recovered my system.