Acer Iconia w700 factory reset

needhelpbadly

After I purchased my Iconia w700 tablet and updated it to Windows 8.1, I set up one local account and made that one the Admin and disabled the Admin rights on my Microsoft account for protection against anyone trying to plant a virus into my tablet.

Unfortunately, just a few weeks later I completely forgot the Admin password and despite numerous tries at guessing the password (I also had no idea that a password recovery disk could be made), it just didn't work.

Acer helpline advised me to factory reset my tablet, but when I accessed Advanced settings>Troubleshoot>Reset device, it told me that Windows Installation or recovery media was required. What does this mean and how do I create recovery media?

exscentric

Unless I am mistaken the media is created while you are in windows.  You would have to be logged in to do so.

 

I doubt that you can get into safe mode but if you could you might be able to create the disk from there.

 

You will probably have to buy the disk from Acer.  UNLESS someone else has an idea.

azurciel

First of all, if the admin account is a Microsoft account, you can reset its password online. I've found this method of resetting your password for local computer accounts. There are more advanced methods of resetting it which can be found here. I've used the 2nd one before, it can run off a usb flash drive.

 

For me, the recovery media was in the box the tablet came in, packed with the warranty. You'll need an external DVD drive to use it. Instead of bundling a Windows 8 CD, Acer uses a custom recovery. See the 2nd link of this post to learn how to use it.