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No Disk Managerment ?

2K views 15 replies 3 participants last post by  Elvandil 
#1 ·
I have Win 7 Premium and clicked on My computer/Manage and get a message that it could not find Computer Management.ink...make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again. I didn't have to type anything...i just clicked on Manage...i need it to format my external hard drive.
 
#3 ·
OK, that is done and now a new problem...maybe it has to do with different versions of Win 7. Like I said i have preinstalled Win 7 Home Premium. At the outset when i bought this net book, acer strongly suggested that i make what they call Recovery Management copy. I just bought an external enclosure with a 40 gig ( actually ) 37 gig hard drive extra that i had in my desktop. It suggests to go to start/Acer/Acer erecovery Management. ..once there click Restore tab and that is where i was stopped...there is no Restore tab for me to enter "restore operating system to factory defaults." It seems like different versions have a different way getting at the same path. l am not looking for system restore..More researching says to click on Alt + F10 as soon as i boot up and it would take me directly there where it should offer me to make that recovery disk default...guess what...nothing appears...This is frustrating you have Win 7, but its akin to small coke, medium coke, large coke and jumbo coke...each coke has its specialty....disgusted.
 
#6 ·
I got it after the screen said starting windows...now another question...it does offer the erecovery to default, but says it i chose to, it would destroy whatever i have on my C drive....Now, i do not want to do this on the same pc...i am trying to do it to my external HD...makes one nervous if i chose that offer...do you know if i do pick that option i would get the offer to do it to an external drive?
 
#7 ·
No, i checked it out and it is only offering me to do it to the existing hd...this is crazy. In the pfd that came with this net book says it could be done via an external hard drive...so where is that option? If i want to do a backup, there they do offer you options...don't know where to go from here.
 
#8 ·
What are you trying to do? It now sounds to me that you are trying to protect against the possibility of losing your hard drive, or at least the ability to boot to the Recovery partition. If this were a typical notebook there would be an Acer function to create a set of Recovery DVDs (or CDs). Since, I assume, you have no optical drive perhaps there is an Acer function to create another bootable Recovery partition on an external drive.

If this is what you are trying to do, I do not know exactly what the function would be called, but doubt that it would say "restore." It's probably in that "start/Acer/Acer erecovery Management" but a different tab.
 
#9 ·
Rather than making recovery disks, which have limited ability to actually help you in a disaster, why not make a full drive backup? Then, you can restore everything, even if your drive fails. It is better than any recovery CD and it backs up everything including Windows so you could get everything back even when your hard drive fails (like when you drop the netbook, ever so gently, but hard enough.....).

Since you have an external, you could even back up regularly so you don't lose recent work, and even burn a recovery from the drive to DVD with your basic stuff on it for a return to where you are now.

Free drive backup software (imaging, cloning, and archiving):

Paragon Backup & Recovery (Recovery boot CD or USB key)
Macrium Reflect (Free)
O&O Disk Image Express
Easeus Todo Backup
Redo Backup & Recovery (Boot CD)
Comodo Time Machine (Complete system, files, programs, and settings restoration, but not "bare-metal" for failed drive)
Clonezilla Live (A bootable CD of Debian with Clonezilla.)
Drive Image XML
PING (Partimage is not Ghost) (Boot CD with option Clam Antivirus)
Partition Saving
Clonezilla

There are also many commercial products with more features.
 
#11 ·
I don't know specifically. If any do, I'd expect it to be Macrium since it seems to copy Acronis so closely. Bootable USB drives are probably a better idea. The Paragon product has an option to make a bootable USB key.

But Acronis and Macrium have the "Safe Zone" (various names) option where a copy of the program is installed on the hard drive in a secure partition. That can be booted by pressing a key (F11?) at boot time and gives the full recovery CD program. That doesn't help with a failed drive, of course, so some other bootable device is better.

When I work on netbooks, I boot from an external CD-ROM. That has always worked so far.

Good question worth exploring. Thank you.

(Of course, all the boot CD's can be made into bootable USB keys using something like BootIce to write the MBR, PBR, and boot files to the key. But not everyone will be equipped to do that.)
 
#12 ·
When I bought this net book, 2 months ago, Acer support strongly suggested that i make a backup copy of the OS, either by cd burning or external hard drive. I finally bought an enclosure ( didn't know about them at that time ) and removed one of my hard drives from my desktop which i was using for storage. Now, I made a phone call to Acer and they now say that i cannot make a copy via ext. hd, only to a cd burner....also, if i want support on how to get Aero to work i have to pay for that support. ..wow...even on a 1 year warranty, they ask you to pay...last time i ever buy anything of Acer again. I like Elvandil's idea of making a full backup of my OS via ext hard drive, which in a sense is similar to recovery, ...the only thing that concerns me, maybe i lose something in that process which prohibit me to reinstall it, otherwise why wouldn't Acer suggest it? BTW, my hard drive is only 40 gig ( 37 ) and i hear conflicting statements of the need for 100 gig size in order to copy it.
 
#13 ·
suggested that i make a backup copy of the OS, either by cd burning or external hard drive.
Are you talking about imaging an exact copy of your installed system (as Elvandil recommended) or a copy of the Recovery partition (to "recover" to factory defaults)?

Whether or not you image your system it is a good idea to create a set of Recovery DVDs (or CDs). Even if you never intend to use them, someday you might decide to sell, gift or donate the machine, and putting a clean Windows on is a nice touch I think.

Macrium Reflect Free images are condensed, and probably every other application in Elvandil's list also condenses. So, whatever space your system is currently taking is a very generous upper limit on the size of an image.

EDIT: Cloning would take the same size partition.

if i want support on how to get Aero to work i have to pay for that support.
If Aero did not work "out of the box" on a PC purchased new with Windows 7 Home Premium installed that is something that they most certainly should fix, as it is probably a hardware fault.
 
#14 ·
Are you talking about imaging an exact copy of your installed system (as Elvandil recommended) or a copy of the Recovery partition (to "recover" to factory defaults)?>>>

What are the differences? They recommend recover to factory default.
As for Aero, the phone support is laughable if one has a sense of humor about this...after asking a question they say..."Could you please hold for 2 minutes while i research or ask someone about it??" They are hiring people who don't know anything about the system that they have to pause and ask their superiors, or check their support on their TV. If I can make a successful copy via my external HD, then I could hot swap it into my desktop that does have a cd burner...btw, they say you would need a few cd disks to make it complete...which again brings up that problem...how big in size are they talking about? I have DVD disks which says on it 4 X 2 hrs, whatever that means...never used them,
 
#15 ·
What are the differences?
If you make a system image immediately after your first boot of the new computer there is almost no difference from the factory default image (Recover partition). As you change settings, add data files, install programs, remove bloatware, etc., your system diverges from the original install.

For my HP Home Premium 64-bit the set of Recovery DVDs is three discs. I think it would take about two dozen CDs.
 
#16 ·
One advantage to having recovery disks, or a system image, is that you also can then delete your recovery partition and add the space to your system for use. You may even want to create a full system image with the recovery partition present, and then delete it. If the process goes as expected, then make an image of the new setup with no recovery partitions and all the space in use. That way, you can recover to either the original configuration (to sell the machine, for example) or to your most recent installaion.

It's a good idea to have more than one copy of recovery disks, too, or one copy on DVD and one on a storage drive. Backups are always good.
 
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