Use of Acer Recovery set of DVD's

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midhurst

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#284444 22-Apr-2021 12:57

Had a hard drive failure and plan to use a Kingston SSD. Am wondering about the process.

Does the Hard Drive need to be formatted first?

When I put started the restore process from disk it found the SSD and seemed quite happy to go through the process and complete—however computer couldn't find a boot device—the recovery disks don't seem smart enough to establish a bootable partition to restore the data to?

Any thoughts? Device is an Aspire 5741

xpd

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#2696646 22-Apr-2021 13:19

The recovery disks should setup everything for you, so it could be a BIOS issue thats not set the SSD as the first boot device.

Check in the BIOS.

Failing that, just get a Windows 10 USB installer (https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10) and see how that goes.

To be honest, Id probably just go the second option, as the recovery CDs will probably have oodles of unwanted bloatware :)

XPD / Gavin

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yitz

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#2696652 22-Apr-2021 13:23

Aspire 5741 sounds like you are restoring Windows 7.

Generally the Factory Recovery process is based on a script that runs diskpart (formatting) then imagex (write WIM to formatted partition) then finally sets up the boot loader.

If you are restoring to non-standard hardware the script may break.

Sometimes when restoring Win7 OEM factory images I had to run bcdboot to specify the system and boot partitions.

In Windows Recovery Environment cmd (e.g. boot from Win7 USB installation media) I would run bcdboot C: /s S:
where C: is the volume with the \WINDOWS folder
and S: is the system bootloader partition (you might have to mount first as system drive usually has no letter)

(your OEM image may or may not have separate SYSTEM partition in which case just bcdboot C: will do)

Oblivian

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#2696664 22-Apr-2021 13:29

Speaking from varied experience with these... 'proper' restore CDs/DVDs have not generally been supplied to the public for some time. Usually it's a windows recovery boot CD, with the intention of looking on the hidden partitions of the original drive for the OS files.

May find at first boot/included in the working OS is a 'create recovery DVD' application. Using both this partition for drivers/apps to inject and the standard Windows imaging tool - is this what you did?

Coaxing a full recovery out of that may have issues if the SSD is not the same size or larger than the original (preset partition amounts etc) and could lead to booting issues. Alternatively if it took ages and seemed to be a new install, try a recovery boot fix.

Their Bios/basic recovery boots to WRE and kicks off that reinstall. If that partition is damaged/AWOL. It usually involves a service centre visit to stamp on one of the on-file full OS images and a reset of the OOBE unless you created a full set.

midhurst

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#2696754 22-Apr-2021 17:00

Yeah, what we are dealing with is that as part of the initial setup process you are asked to create a backup set to enable you to restore to factory. I think it would work a treat if I wasn't using a brand new SSD as replacement. The missing point would be to format the drive and then run the restore from disk

Oblivian

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#2696759 22-Apr-2021 17:22

If you previously did it and have two or three full DVDs that should recover no matter what is on the drive

Catch maybe if it is unable to that you need an f6 driver for that type of SSD. Or it's expecting a different size.

If you successfully did the full backup to DVD those are designed to allow for failure they don't need data on the drive.

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#2696955 23-Apr-2021 09:33

SSD or normal HD, it shouldnt matter to any recovery process. A HD is a HD .
There should also be no need to format the drive first , the recovery process should do that for you . There is never any need to format if recovering from a system image.

Recovery DVD's are sometimes just a waste of time , they often dont work .
Sometimes they literally just kick off a standard Windows Install .

If it doesnt work , then it doesnt work .
As above, just download Windows10 media creator & install with that . You'll need to make USB Stick install media (It no longer fits on single sided DVD)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

A install from Win10 install media will give you a clean Win10 , without all the manufacturers preloaded crapware & bloatware .