Recovery options Acer Aspire X3995 Windows 7 Home Premium

I am trying restore my computer to factory settings by using the 4 disks created when I first bought the computer. When I get to the part to choose which option I want, I select the one that will wipe all of my hard drive and totally return it to factory settings. However, a message tells me it is necessary for my hard drive to be torally blank to do this. This might be a silly question but how do I make the hard drive totally blank and then load the recovery disks?

Initiially I had wanted to perform a clean install with the newly created ISO of Windows 7 I have downloaded but to do this I need to get into the bios settings to change the bios legacy. Apparently the F2 key will allow me to enter the bios, but although I am hitting the key (and trying holding it down) before the windows login screens appear it simply loads straight into windows. I am able to use the F12 key but I don't think these are the bios settings I need to change.

I am unfamiliar with bios or UEFI settings, I have never needed to change much in the bios before so would appreciate any help.

Thanks

Accepted answers

All comments

IronFly

it's DEL key on desktops. Smiley Happy

UEFI and Legacy settings are under BOOT tab on BIOS.

to wipe your HDD, you can download a .iso of Hiren's boot cd and use gparted to wipe it.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip

unzip and burn the .iso, then select gparted

Doug999

Thanks for your reply.
I had previously entered the bios set up utility by pressing the DEL key but had not got to the same bios screen that I had seen on Acer youtube videos when the F2 key was pressed. These videos showed the UEFI and legacy settings as you suggest.

But when selecting the boot options tab after entering the bios via the DEL key, there is no mention of UEFI or Legacy.
The only entries under boot options tab are
1st boot device EFI device (If selected this shows nothing else)
2nd boot device Hard disk
3rd boot device CD & DVD
4th boot device Removable device
5th boot device LAN

EFI device priority press enter
Hard disk priority press enter
Optical disk drive priority press enter
Removable device priority press enter
Network device press enter

quiet boot enabled
Halt on all but keyboard

If I can't get to the correct bios settings to enable legacy, presumably I can't clean install windows 7 which is what I would prefer.

Thanks also for the link to the hirens boot cd, I will look at that tomorrow.

IronFly

Your system was sold with windows 8 or 7 installed?

Doug999

It was sold with windows 7 home premium. Nothing else has ever been installed on it.

IronFly

So Legacy is the default option, no UEFI available for you.

Windows 7 must install without issues since it needs Legacy.

Doug999

Thanks for your reply
Although you are saying that there is no UEFI and legacy is the default on windows 7, when I put the downloaded windows 7 ISO disk in to perform a clean install, I get an error message about UEFI and GPT and it is not possible to get beyond this step (I don't remember exaclty, I had taken a photo but it isn't clear enough to read)
I have read on several forums it is necessary on Windows 7 to enter bios via F2 key to change settings to legacy before a clean install will work. And the error messages I am getting do seem to indicate there is UEFI present.
I have already tried to perform a complete factory settings recovery. This wouldn't work because the complete hard drive needs to be empty, hence my initial post about wiping the drive.
To see if my problems with windows could be solved by recovering just C drive, I tried that . I was left with a C drive with just the initial Windows 7 that in theory I had when first buying the computer. As the drive had previously been partitioned, the recovery made in C drive was only 200gb of the total 1tb hard drive. However, the recovery partition has been deleted by using the recovery option. It shows as just free space, it is neither FAT32 or NTFS. And it has not solved the Windows problems.

So at this stage I have
A 'working' Windows 7 installed into a 200gb partition that still has the same problems as before I started any of this
A bios that I cannot enter via F2 key and the DEL key into bios does not show any UEFI or legacy settings that i can change.
No recovery partition
4 recovery disks made when first received computer that I used to recover C drive that will not allow me to totally return to factory settings.
A Windows 7 installation disk downloaded and saved in ISO format itching to be installed into my computer!

I don't understand why the windows problems that I had have not been resolved with a C dive being returned to factory settings. In case it gives anyone an idea, the problems are:
1 boot time prior to windows starting to load takes 2 minutes 10 seconds evey time computer is started even into Safe Mode
2 random screen flicker (tried a different monitor, same flicker)
3 start menu disappears within one or 2 seconds
4 renaming files disappear before finishing renaming
5 Screensaver will not start.

It's as if a mouse is being clicked (I've tried 3 different mice and a different keyboard)