Notebooks & Netbooks

[Htrad]

Hi,

I think I know the answer to this question but I hope I'm wrong...would appreciate some advice and/or help. 

V11 Touch came with OEM W8.1 installed. I made a disc image a few days after purchase (no USB backup).

I run virtual machines (XP and Vista) using VMware player, and to be honest should have done the same with an evaulation copy of Windows 10 I downloaded,...but I didn't. I installed the evaluation copy, played around with it a bit, then tried to factory restore the V11 thinking all would be OK...

...it wasn't...

I couldn't do a factory restore at all and any attempt to do so resulted in the evaulation copy being re-installed.

OK, I know I messed up, but my question is quite simple. Has the evaluation copy of W10 erased the original OEM partition of W8.1? If it hasn't, how do I go about retrieving it?

As mentioned I do have an image file of the computer taken before the evaluation copy was installed. Would the original OEM W8.1 partition be on this image? (I can see 3 hard disk image files in the system image file).

Currently disk management shows 4 partitions - 600 MB (healthy recovery partition), 300 MB (healthy EFI system partition), 449.26 GB NTFS (C: Drive) and 15.50 GB (healthy recovery partition).

A new recovery disc costs about £50 and I think this is now my only option to return the computer to its factory state (all Acer software present). I don't think my disc image (taken before the evaulation copy was installed) will restore the OEM partition - am I right?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

[IronFly]

Your disk probably is just the recovery to use if windows doesn't start.

have you tried to press ALT+F10 at boot to use Acer erecovery?

[Htrad]

Thanks for replying.

Yes, tried Alt+F10 but no luck - restored the evaluation copy.

Can't be sure but would the OEM partition be labelled as such in disk management?

[IronFly]

normally is labeled "recovery" or "PQservice" and i suspect that the bigger one, is the older Acer recovery.

The main problem is the HDD partition done by Win10, that overrided the original one.

Give a look here:

http://ofaolain.com/blog/2014/04/14/recover-the-acer-partition/

at least you can try to boot from the bigger "recovery" 15.5gb, making bootable and modifying the windows boot manager.

[Htrad]

Quick read through and may try that. Thanks. So, essentially, the Acer recovery partition is still there...

Would resetting the MBR help? I need the recovery partition to be accessed first.

Thanks for your help.

[IronFly]

MBR must be set to have the acer recovery bootable and not hidden, so you must follow that webpage.

[Htrad]

OK will do. So that 15 GB partition on my disc is probably the Acer partition? The evaluation copy of W10 hasn't overwritten it but has installed it's own much smaller partition?

In the event of doing a complete wipe of the disc (from W10), would the Acer partition still be there?

Thanks.

[IronFly · Accepted solution]

i'm guessing that 15.5gb is the original recovery, since i can't see the content.

if you wipe the HDD, you will erase all, even Acer recovery.

in this case, you can order recovery media from acer shop if you are in the USA:

http://store.acer.com/store/aceramer/en_US/eRecovery

or call you  Acer support service if outside USA.