Help recovering ACER Aspire 5315

[Inikay]

Hi!

I'm sorry for the long post...

I have an Acer Aspire 5315 laptop and wanted to change from Vista Basic 32 bit to Windows 7 Home premium 32 bit. I put in the Windows 7 disc and did the whole installing process.

Everything went smoothly, but then, when Windows 7 was "finalising", preparing the desktop, it logs out the current user, shuts down and restarts.

From there on, the only thing I get is Acer e-recovery management with a File Not Found pop up saying "cannot find file: C:\D2D\Images\*.WSI when try to determine UI language". I click OKAY then it goes to Acer eRecovery Management with the message "how would you like to restore?". I chose "restore system to factory setting" and I couldn't see it fast enough but there was a table/grid saying something about Source: Hard disk partition 2 then another message pops up saying "restore failed - reason 0xa0000001" click okay to restart.

Everytime I restart the computer, Windows loads some files and then e-recovery comes in.

What I tried:
1. I used a Linux installation, deleted the extra partition (it had the hidden Acer recovery one plus two 54 GB prtitions), formatted a single 108 Gb partition, instaled W7 again, and the problem remains.

2. I tried the recovery disks that came with the computer, but they don't boot (Yes, I changed the boot sequence before).

3. Repaired the W7 installation with the W7 DVD, but it still does the same.

I thought about deleting the ACER hidden partition, creating a single partition and installing W7 there, but I am afraid that, if it doesn't work, I won't be able to restore the computer to factory default anymore.

I read something about the e-recovery management not working if it didn't find exactly the number and size of partitions the hard disk originaly had, but I still have to try that.

Do you think I can delete the Acer hidden partition and go for single one with Windows 7? I don't see a reason it won't work, but I am afraid I will not be able to go back to factory defaults if it doesn't...

Thanks.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Deleting the hidden partition should be fine. You can always see if a recovery DVD is available instead.

 

[bankster55]

call up acer and see if they have complete reinstall CD

 

[Inikay]

Well, going back to factory defaults would be my last option, really. I don't mind losing that partition if I'm sure W7 or even XP will work fine. What puzzles me is why does e-recovery automatically overrides W7 and doesn't let it start after what appeared to be a successful install...

I think if I delete the hidden partition with e-recovery on it, W7 might go through ok.

If it doesn't, I will then have to call Acer and ask for the disks, as I wouldn't have the hidden partition anymore (it's not working anyway, so...) :-(

Thanks.

 

[gsaldivar]

The last time I purchased Acer recovery discs they didn't work properly and Acer ignored my request for a replacement or refund. I ended up buying a new copy of windows and installing drivers and crap manually. What a hassle...

 

[bankster55]

When you do a NEW never before present install of Win 7 on a laptop/netbook, it does what it needs to do to work, including changing drive letters, placing the bootmgr and BCD boot files and making sys partition active
Win 7 cant see hiddens, thats why they call them hidden. Some hiddens are locked - cant be moved. Hiddens can be FAT 12/16/32 or even more exotic things.
Every OEM does things different.
Next up, your activation by majors OEM SLP mode is carefully constructed complicated dance with bios code, hotkeys, recov managers/consoles, O/S partitions/driver partitions, partial recov partitions, full recov partitions etc.
Then theres your serial SLIC and cert which are loaded at first boot.

So the big question is:
What type of home prem do you have?
retail?
generic MS upgrade disk?
Acer specific upgrade?
Small mom and pop OEM?

Where did you get it?
Online store?
Online download?
B&M?
Friend?

If you want to upgrade to Win 7 on a major OEM laptop WITHOUT a disk BY THEM to do just that you have to manually straighten out all the OEM stuff, which is made much more difficult by the fact you have already mucked around quite a bit. Its not worth the time and effort now

So IF you have a genuine FULL Win 7 Retail or small biz OEM disk with a legit serial, you can do the following
Download the freeware bootable killdisk 7.1MB bootable CD file and burn it to a blank disk with something like ultraiso, Make sure boot order in bios is CD first and boot to it and highlight/run it on the whole drive (80h). This is a low level format utility. It will wipe your drive of everything OEM including hiddens, locked, MBR, SLICS Certs etc. Formatting will not reliably/every time do this.

You will be then starting with an absolutely clean slate - like a new HDD
You will still have a SLIC 2.1 bios, but this should not be a problem.
>Note that the Win 7 install may or may not have drivers needed for your laptop mobo. I would not do this unless i had gone to the Acer site and had all the required SPECIFIC drivers downloaded and ready at hand, on a usb stick not plugged in unless needed..

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
(there is also a bootable floppy/usb image vers)

 

[Inikay]

Thanks for your answers, but I went ahead and just deleted de Acer hidden partition with gparted. When I restarted the computer, Windows 7 I had installed loaded with no problems at all.

Somehow the e-recovery application on the hidden partition was messing things up, not letting W7 start properly.

Now I have a clean installation with everything working properly

Only question is, I have 3 partitions: the two I created of 55 Gb each, and the hidden partition now is unallocated space (10Gb). Problem is this 10gb are adjacent to the system partition (c and not to my Data partition (d, so I can't merge it with the latter.

Well, I guess I will just use these 3, instead of searching for a program that does merge non adjacent partitions.

Thanks again!