Acer eRecovery Media Problem

Well the story is a long one on how I arrived at such a crossroad but ..I will try and keep it simple ? First off I was hit by a packet virus a hacker dropped for my pleasure on a social game one night. It hammered my HDD into a state of mush and i could not get ride of it before my HDD began to rattle itself apart. I had another Acer machine i had quit useing with Windows xp Home on it so i figured what the heck ..same make same size. Well I managed to do a recovery on it and it worked gr8 for some time and i had the reserved issue of Win 10 coming Smiley Happy Now wouldn't you know it I managed to get hit by some driveby piece of work from non other than IE ? And as luck would have it I could not find it either Avast ? So thinking Oh well I grabbed my Recovery disks and munchies and tossed the disk in with only noises coming from the DVD? Hmmm not good ..so I ordered the disks from Acer and did a happy dance when they arrived Smiley Happy Well ? now I can't get them to run either when every kind of software disk will, but any OS for Acer ? Ok I can not seem to flatline my HDD in that the dang front end MBR and system32 will not go away lol.

Is there a way to clean the dang thing back to new other than buying a $200.00 external can ? Or the same price for a brand new HDD for an old machine ? I am kind of tech savey so any answer will help Smiley Happy I luv this machine Aspire 5517 and have rescued it from the grave many times but. I tried every concievable safe ? tool out there in cyberspace DBAN /Gpart/etc. Anyone want to bite ? LOL

Accepted answers

IronFly

already tried Hiren's boot CD and miniXP?

Download Hiren's boot cd
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

you must create a bootable media as CD or USB pen from the .iso inside the downloaded .zip file.
boot selecting Mini XP

Once booted use command prompt:
then inside the cmd windows, type
diskpart
then on diskpart type
list disk
take note of the correct disk ID to erase
type
select disk x
(x is the ID of your HDD to erase)
type
clean all

Partition wizard??

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html
download the .iso file
then use a software to burn CD/DVD or USB flash drive and burn the .iso file
once done, put the CD/DVD/USB on your PC, boot from CD/USB (maybe you need to boot under Legacy if you have UEFI BIOS)
press F12 at boot and choose CD or USB
at the desktop
select your HDD
right click on your HDD icon and choose delete all patitions and click on yes and then apply
http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/delete-all-partitions.html#howto
or wipe your HDD completly (it will erase also any GPT or MBR on the HDD), choosing the first option after selecting the wipe function.

All comments

IronFly

already tried Hiren's boot CD and miniXP?

Download Hiren's boot cd
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

you must create a bootable media as CD or USB pen from the .iso inside the downloaded .zip file.
boot selecting Mini XP

Once booted use command prompt:
then inside the cmd windows, type
diskpart
then on diskpart type
list disk
take note of the correct disk ID to erase
type
select disk x
(x is the ID of your HDD to erase)
type
clean all

Partition wizard??

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html
download the .iso file
then use a software to burn CD/DVD or USB flash drive and burn the .iso file
once done, put the CD/DVD/USB on your PC, boot from CD/USB (maybe you need to boot under Legacy if you have UEFI BIOS)
press F12 at boot and choose CD or USB
at the desktop
select your HDD
right click on your HDD icon and choose delete all patitions and click on yes and then apply
http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/delete-all-partitions.html#howto
or wipe your HDD completly (it will erase also any GPT or MBR on the HDD), choosing the first option after selecting the wipe function.

What

Thanks Iron Fly Smiley Happy ...I think my problem is that i can't seem to include the junk at 0 thats outside of the first partition ? I can wipe the drive of everything except that and got to wondering if it maybe the reason the System disk stalls ? All of the disks I have for this machine except for the Repair Disk just flutter in the DVD drive Smiley Sad I have it set up to boot from the CD drive and can get to the Command prompt and have cleaned it several times with no result. Unfortunatly my options have turned to either Ubuntu or this Digital River ISO to get running so i can get help from others who may be in the same boat or have been. I will be fine once i get Win 7 back as I plan on going directly to Win 10 after so you see why I am not spending a lot Smiley Happy The old/new HDD is a Sata the old one was a IDE but it worked gr8 up until i had to try and get my Rec disks to work just one more time Smiley Very Happy Just one more time is all i needed.... but nope.

I will try and see if I can get those to work somehow and just maybe Smiley Happy Thanks again

billsey

Have you tried fixmbr, bootrec and such from the command line of a Windows install disk?

IronFly

i'm getting lost....

if i understood:

you are not able to wipe an HDD completly?

everything you tried left you with MBR and system32 folder intact?

even "diskpart clean all" ?

What

Hello Gentlemen ..Well after some very long 24 hr days trying to get things back in order. Finally things just fell into place. Not sure how yet ? but its a long story lol about 6 days worth . Not to sure if the Media works or not but I worked around it and am glad to say I am up and running and activated. Now just waiting for the Win 10 download which is going to get put on the most expencive DVDs and Ext HDD I can find Smiley Happy

Thanks guys for your help and a word Hiren's Disk I found a bit out dated but still some goodies on it. Can you include that its a one shot deal and must be reburned if tou need to use the Default Key indicator? I had a Dos error also that i fixed right as rain.