Forgot eRecovery Password

Andy_Boy

How can I know or reset my eRecovery Password in my Acer Aspire V3-471G?

ScottyC

Hi there,

 

I'll start off by saying the resetting the password is a royal pain if you're not technically inclined. I'd actually go as far as to say that it's a pain even if you are. Keep in mind you do have the option to buy a copy of your recovery disks from Acer if you find these steps to be too hard.

 

Here we go.....

 

Before you start, note that this is something that could potentially cause system instabilities and even prevent you from loading Windows. I've done it numerous times but I know what I'm doing and I always assume the risks of my actions, which you should be prepared to do as well.

First you'll need to unhide the recovery partition. To do this you need to open the command prompt. Press the Windows key and the letter R on your keyboard and in the window that pops up type CMD. Now hit enter, you should be in a black box with white writing.

In the command prompt type diskpart and hit enter. Windows should ask you to allow the application to run. Obviously you want to allow it. In this windows type "select disk 0" <- that's a zero not an o, and don't type the quotation marks.
        
You now want to select the recovery partition. Type "list partition". You'll see a list of all of the partitions on that drive. Look for one that's over 5G but smaller than 30G. This should be your recovery drive. Once you've found it type "select partition " and the number you just found. So if it was 1 you would type "select partition 1"

Now type "set id=07" and hit enter. Now you can once again select disk 0. If you've forgotten how just type "select disk 0". You should see the pqservice partition listed. It will have a volume number, take note of that and type "select volume " and the volume number you just found. Now type "assign letter=r" and hit enter. This should have just about done it. You will now be able to access the drive in order to find your password.
        
Now you should be able to find pqservice listed in computer. Open it and look for "aimdrs.dat". Right click and click open with notepad. now just search through the file for password= and you'll see your password listed. Now just open the erecovery program and type the password you just found. You'll be able to reset it there as well.

I hope you were able to fix your issue, best of luck and take care!
ScottyC