there was a problem resetting your pc

pzi123

I tried to rehearse the recovery process using a USB drive. I followed http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17690/kw/recovery  I created the recovery USB drive on a 64g SD card, removed the original 500g SATA and put a spare not partitioned equivalent 500g SATA drive in. Booted from the USB and followed the procedure to reset the PC. I selected to repartition the new drive and after some 40% completion the recovery was interrupted with the message " there was a problem resetting your PC".  On the attempt to reboot I got the message that there is no bootable drive available.
Any ideas what may be the cause and how to debug that?
That error message is not very informative.

pzi123

forgot to mention the system I use:  brand new Aspire R7 with windows 8.