Notebooks & Netbooks

[Bob-Bob]

Performed Factory Recovery Backup to 32GB USB drive as recommended by the Aspire Switch 10 Manual which said "a minimum of 16GB of space would be required".  Instructions on Backup screen says only 8GB required. Backup actually took up only 5.8GB!  Backed up again to another 32GB USB drive to check this & again took up only 5.8GB.  Apparently neither the Manual nor the backup screen are correct as to how much space is needed. Why the discrepancy?  I don't know if I have a good backup or not since I got only 5.8GB on my USB drive on both of my attempts. Had similar problem with Drivers & Applications backup.  Manual says it may take several DVDs, but Backup Screen says only one disk, or about 0.33GB.  Performed this backup twice and both times all I got on my USB drive was a shortcut of 1KB to the "Resource Center", whatever that is!  Has anyone else had similar results.  It would seem that both backups could be made to one 8GB USB drive if my results are correct.

[IronFly · Accepted solution]

Yes, there are some discrepancy on the recovery backup.

i would suggest you to use the windows 8.1 integrated utility instead of the Acer erecovery.

you can do a full system image, so you don't have to re-install everything (programs, settings) to an usb drive and create a recovery USB media to boot from and re-load the system image and help you to fix boot issues.

i suggest you to do a system image when you have all your programs installed and tested the system is stable.

Recovery drive:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-usb-recovery-drive

full system image:

To open System Image Backup

1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
   (If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.)

2. Enter File History in the search box, tap or click File History, and then click System Image Backup.

3. System image backup appears on the bottom left of your screen, it can take a while to appear, so be patient.

[Bob-Bob]

Thanks for the help.  I did as suggested and apparently the Recovery Backup was created OK using the W8.1 routine.  Did this also copy the drivers or do I still need to use the Acer program to back up the drivers?

[IronFly · Accepted solution]

The recovery drive will just help you to boot and solve some issues on booting.

The system image backup do an exact copy of your system, so you will have all the things you had installed at the moment.

[Bob-Bob]

Tried to make the full system image.  Had following problems.  First, message that could not use a USB drive due to type of formatting.  Only other choice with the Switch 10 was to an external micro SD disk.  When tried this, got message that

"Class not registered (0x80040154". 

[IronFly]

USB must be format as FAT32 or better NTFS.

about the error:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2934165/en-us

it's about BD-R but probably can be related to microSD too, by the way i will never use a microSD to do a system image, since i doubt the recovery media will be able to read from the microSD reader.

please use a properly formatted USB pen, i did it this way and worked.

[Bob-Bob]

Formatted a 32GB USB as NTSF and labeled it "Aspire System Image".  When I go to the System Image Backup screen, it finds it, but when I select it to use I get message "The drive is not a valid backup location"!!

[IronFly]

Probably need a bigger one.

[Bob-Bob]

I don't think that should be the problem.  My Switch 10 came with only 32GB of internal storage for pre-installed Windows plus the programs & files that I might add. The File Manager shows that about a third of that is still unused. It would seem that there should be plenty of space on the 32GB USB to contain the image backup.

[IronFly]

If you can, try with a bigger one, need to be more than the full storage.