Windows can't configure hardware after recovery

zenith42

Honorable
Mar 6, 2013
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10,510
I can't get my system restored and hope someone can suggest a possible fix.

I have an Acer Aspire 8930G laptop. It had recently been loading slowly and i decided to do a system restore to factory settings using the built in Acer erecovery program. This ran through to the re-boot but then failed.

Tried to run the recovery disks created when i first bought it but that suggested a system disk was missing. I then bought a set of recovery disks from Acer but they still failed to install and i suspected the HDD.

Was able to run "Parted Magic" in RAM from a boot disk and checked the HDD which it confirmed had failed. Old HDD was WD Scorpio Black 320GB so i bought new HDD and this is the same make but 500GB.

I then run the recovery disks which run all the way throgh to the re-boot and it says setting up windows. I then get a message which says "Windows set up could not configure windows to run on this computers harware". It only gives me an "OK" option which reboots again and doesn't get any further.

I've tried it several times and have also formatted the drive and set the partition to the same size as was on the old drive. I can't see anything similar on the forum but any suggestion for a fix would be great.
 

zenith42

Honorable
Mar 6, 2013
2
0
10,510
Was suggested i upgrade to windows 7. Found a local PC repair guy who would try it out. He instaled 7 and it worked first time. Now i'm rebuilding all the backed up programs and files and it seems ok. Only slight problem is the webcam is now upside down no matter which drivers i install. Will try Manycam as that may fix it.
 

TenPc

Honorable
Jul 11, 2012
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11,960
Check your device Manger for any inconsistencies, most laptops with a preferred OS don't have drvers for later OS, or thy use generic Widows drivers (greyed icons in the Device Manager like tthe ACPI.

Using backups from a different OS might cause issues if the backups included any sytem drivers or files or folders but if the backups are just files (and folders) you created then it should be okay. The problem with a backup is that it copies back to the original location rather than a location you want it to go.

The webcam will need a driver update if avaiable otherwise there might be an optionin the webcam menu to adjust the ORIENTATION.