Ok, i have an acer aspire 5738G and the hard drive and partitions have been completely erased. The recovery disks do not work, i get a blue screen of death on loading of windows (i think this is because the hard drive is not formatted). How can i format the hard drive without using the recovery or windows disk? I assume once formatted, i should be able to reinstall the operating environment? Any help would be great. Cheers
Not that i am aware of, but after researching appernetly there is a hidden partition that holds data that allows the recovery boot disks to complete. Currently it goes through the process of recovery disk 1 and almost through 2, then states that the image could not be saved. Am at a loss as to why i can not boot from cd rom and use windows disk, but as i said this maybe as the hard drive has not been formated. Am thinking of taking out the h/drive, formatting via another pc, then replacing and installing windows? What do you reckon??? am i on the right path or do you think it could be something diff? Cheers for your help, muchly appreciated.
If I understand correctly, you are just giving up on the Recovery system since it appears not to work, anyway. Your plan is simply to go back to the original Windows Install CD and re-install completely, ignoring the Recovery system.
The Windows Install process will do three disk preparation tasks for you at the beginning if you so choose: delete old Partitions, create one or more new ones (you need at least one bootable Primary Partition for the installation), and Format that Partition before installing. Usually all you need to start this process is a normal Windows Install CD and an adjustment in the BIOS Setup screens. To get into BIOS Setup you usually hold down the "Del" key while booting and it goes there. Check two things. First, make sure that the optical drive and your HDD are recognized in the BIOS, and that the HDD is Enabled. If you are installing Win XP, I would recommend that you set the HDD mode to IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode so that you don't have to load drivers from a floppy disk. If you're installing VISTA or Win 7, they can use IDE, native SATA, or AHCI mode HDD's, so choose whichever of those you prefer to set your mode. Secondly, go to the Boot Priority Sequence screen and set it up. I suggest you do optical drive first choice, HDD second, and nothing else after that. Save and finish booting.
Now when you boot it will look first at your optical drive. If ou put your Windows Install disk in there before booting, you should be all set to do the complete fresh install.
Some systems and mobos come with a CD that contains a utility to create the Restore Partition and CD's. They caution you that, in making Partitions on your HDD at the time of Windows Installation, you must leave enough Unallocated Space to allow that utility later to create this special hidden Recovery Partition. So check your manual for any hint of this.
The Windows Install process will do three disk preparation tasks for you at the beginning if you so choose: delete old Partitions, create one or more new ones (you need at least one bootable Primary Partition for the installation), and Format that Partition before installing. Usually all you need to start this process is a normal Windows Install CD and an adjustment in the BIOS Setup screens. To get into BIOS Setup you usually hold down the "Del" key while booting and it goes there. Check two things. First, make sure that the optical drive and your HDD are recognized in the BIOS, and that the HDD is Enabled. If you are installing Win XP, I would recommend that you set the HDD mode to IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode so that you don't have to load drivers from a floppy disk. If you're installing VISTA or Win 7, they can use IDE, native SATA, or AHCI mode HDD's, so choose whichever of those you prefer to set your mode. Secondly, go to the Boot Priority Sequence screen and set it up. I suggest you do optical drive first choice, HDD second, and nothing else after that. Save and finish booting.
Now when you boot it will look first at your optical drive. If ou put your Windows Install disk in there before booting, you should be all set to do the complete fresh install.
Some systems and mobos come with a CD that contains a utility to create the Restore Partition and CD's. They caution you that, in making Partitions on your HDD at the time of Windows Installation, you must leave enough Unallocated Space to allow that utility later to create this special hidden Recovery Partition. So check your manual for any hint of this.
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