eRecovery Management

Hi. I have found many articles about problems with the eRecovery Management tool but still couldn't find an answer to my problem.

When I bought 3 Acer Aspire REVO about 4 years ago, I made sure to create the recovery DVDs, because I knew I was going to wipe the drives and install Windows XP instead (they came pre-loaded with VISTA). Now, those computers are outdated and need to be sent for resale. I securely erased the drives, connected an external DVD drive, and booted from the first recovery disk.

When the eRecovery Management screen shows up, I'm asked to "Select Restore Type".

-> Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults >> Greyed out, can't select it
-> Restore Operating System and Retain User Data >> Greyed out, can't select it

-> Exit >> The only option that I can click on.

Why am I not able to click on "Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults", this is absurd. I spent hours looking up on this forum, on Google in general and it seems that a few people has experienced this, but no one can provide a solid answer as to what the problem is, EXCEPT, that the recovery discs may be damaged, or the hard drive needs to be formatted, or needs to be free of partition.

I did a full hard drive erase, without any partition. No difference.

I formatted hard drive. No difference.

To test the theory of damaged recovery discs (even though the first disc boots fine), I used my main desktop computer and did the following:

Created an ISO image of both recovery discs (Recovery1.iso and Recovery2.iso).
I used VirtualBox, created a new Virtual Image, changed the settings to boot from Recovery1.iso
The VM booted to the eRecovery Management screen, and all options are available.
I was even able to "Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults" on the VM!!!

So obviously, the restore DVDs are not damaged. So what's the problem with the Acer Aspire REVO that I can't select "Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults"??

Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

Accepted answers

sccoaire

I disabled AHCI in the BIOS, no difference.

I took the hard drive out of the computer, inserted it in a Dell Latitude laptop, booted from the first recovery disc. I was then able to select the first option, "Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults". Once the restore was complete, I powered off the laptop, removed the drive and put it back into the REVO Aspire 3600. AHCI needs to be enabled in the BIOS. The initial, out-of-the-box Vista setup routine booted fine, and all original drivers and applications were installed.

Amazing that there is no hardware check on that eRecovery, but that's a good thing otherwise I wouldn't have been able to boot from a Dell laptop to do the restore. Fankly, no one should go through that much trouble. Most people don't have the technical skills or know-how to figure all this out. Sadly, those are stuck with an Acer computer that can't be recovered.

All comments

Tommy-Acer

Thank you for a very complete overview of what you've done to narrow down the problem you are seeing.

Some suggestions that may bear on the situation:

You may attempt to disable AHCI in BIOS.
It is possible that the hard drive is faulty.
You may also wish to check the RAM in the system. It's #3 on the list as it's a remote possibility.

sccoaire

I disabled AHCI in the BIOS, no difference.

I took the hard drive out of the computer, inserted it in a Dell Latitude laptop, booted from the first recovery disc. I was then able to select the first option, "Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults". Once the restore was complete, I powered off the laptop, removed the drive and put it back into the REVO Aspire 3600. AHCI needs to be enabled in the BIOS. The initial, out-of-the-box Vista setup routine booted fine, and all original drivers and applications were installed.

Amazing that there is no hardware check on that eRecovery, but that's a good thing otherwise I wouldn't have been able to boot from a Dell laptop to do the restore. Fankly, no one should go through that much trouble. Most people don't have the technical skills or know-how to figure all this out. Sadly, those are stuck with an Acer computer that can't be recovered.

lowriejam

Sadly, I am one of those without the time or specific knowhow. I will have to resort to buying a new laptop for my wife to work from. Also sadly, is that it won't be another ACER laptop, as I see this is a common themed discussion that very seldomly gets resolved.

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