I mucked up my new laptop and had to reload the operating system and all the drivers. Unfortunately this laptop didn't come with recovery disks. Instead it uses a hidden partition and you're supposed to hit alt + F10 when the Acer logo appears to enter the recovery system.

Unfortunately, my system was so mucked up I couldn't access the recovery system using alt + F10 so I simply reloaded the operating system using an old XP Home disk and getting the drivers off the internet.

I have successfully reloaded everything but I was hoping to regain the ability to get to the recovery partition. The partition is still there (I saw it when I deleted and re-created the C partition and formatted it for a fresh install of XP). I was careful not to delete it so I'm confident it's still there with all the drivers and stuff on it.

Is there anyway to get access to it? The program was called eRecovery but there is no download for it on any of the Acer websites that I could see.

Any help would be appreciated.

I phoned Acer and they said it would have to be returned to them to have the eRecovery ability restored but I won't bother doing that since my system is working fine.

I just want to be able to do an eRecovery back up and create some backup disks in case I muck up my system again in future.

mmm - I seem to recall that Acer programme their laptops to prompt you (every time you power-up/logon) to make a backup CD/DVD ; this until you actually either make it, or disable the prompt. Then I presume one uses that with the recovery partition to rebuild the system (back to point of arival - or whichever state you opt for?

My Acer Aspire came programmed that way... Fortunaely I haven't yet had to use the restore/recovery routine - yet... (he said tempting fate...)

Somehow I don't think you will gain access to/be able to use partition again?

Thanks for the reply. It's a shame if I can't access the partition... not a really big deal I guess but it's a waste of 4 Gigs if I can't access it for all the original Acer programs (like Acer Arcade).

I just looked in disk management and the partition is definitely there and "healthy" - it's called PQService and is an EISA configuration.

If it's not accessible then I'll delete it... if that's easily done? Anyone know?

Also, can anyone suggest an easy way to back up my drivers?

Did you try Acer tech support?

Yeah, they said to return the laptop to them to be fixed up but I don't think it's quite worth going to that much trouble since I have restored all the drivers necessary to regain full functionality. Just don't have some of the cool Acer programs or the Acer Recovery ability. I've backed up my drivers now though (in the event of future calamity!).

What model Acer; and do you have any of the Acer CDs? Also are you in the UK, and if not then where?

I have an Acer Aspire 5672. Had Compusa make a copy of the recovery and make it ntfs since it came as fat 32. Don't know if it is any help, but did you go to Acer's Pan American site for your drivers and down loads? Mine crashed and they did a nice reinstall from the disk they had burned. Good luck.

Bill

Hello Tryan

I am in the same boat. I do not have recovery disks for my Acer 2310 laptop and tried erecovery from the hard drive and it gave me internal error 8027. It goes to 25% recovery and then internal inconsistency has been detected. How do I get my computer to work ? How do I get bootable CDs. I have the Windows XP CD provided by Acer but it is not bootable.

ANy help will be appreciated.

Thx
Harry

the alt-f10 thing.

in the manuals (pdf & hardcopy) for my aspire3500 it says alt-f10 during boot will start recovery system but it DOES NOT work. However 'Acer eManager' (3rd button left of power on/off) can launch 'eRecovery' which isnt mentioned by either manual (go figure).