Acer Aspire 5002 WLMI Laptop; Hidden Partition---eRecovery question

BinaryBeast

I recently got the BSOD on this old unit and because I could get into BIOS but had forgotten how to enter the eRecovery system from that state, the Recover From CD/DVD was done using the 4 original Acer discs (1 System, 3 Recovery). This system has never been changed from the original Win XP, has never had other major problems, the drives have never (I'm fairly sure) been reformatted, and I believe the "outside-of-windows" Recovery screen used to open with Alt-F10, 'though I'd never actually used it, but it doesn't now. My first question is how can one determine whether the hidden partition still exists? If it does, are there other reasons the Alt-F10  control doesn't open it when the Acer screen appears? 

 

My schooling is neither in electronics nor programming but I have known some great people in the fields and I'm curious about everything so the following is just for my general understanding. Can anyone here explain any of it well?

 

Is the information on the hidden partition written in more basic language (perhaps DOS?) and read by the circuitry on the hard drive, whereas the later 'normal' information is sent from the drive to the memory units and processed there by the programs which have been opened by the BIOS?

What was involved in putting this information on the disc originally and why couldn't it be done by anyone besides Acer, when they still could -- just a matter of having all the data in that more basic language, or perhaps needing something different than the installed drive circuitry to do the writing?

 

This system uses a Toshiba MK 1031GAS hard drive which, from my reading, was fairly advanced for its time (but is somewhat rare now). Is the Firmware on these a non-resettable memory chip on the drive circuitry? If I were looking for a replacement drive for this old system, would I need to consider the firmware version and if so, are there many versions,  and would more than one version work on this unit? This is of practical concern  a real consideration. Where can a person learn more about details and subjects like this?

 

FWIW, yesterday I finally got through by phone to a real person in the Acer Texas division who confirmed there was no support whatsoever for these old units; they apparently have neither tools nor any information about them. 

 

laurent_14

Hello BinaryBeast,

 

Look this video: Acer eRecovery - How to restore the Operating System from Recovery Partition

 

The hidden partition is PQSERVICE. You'll find many information on the net.

BinaryBeast

Thanks for the reply;

 

I understand how it should work, but as I said, the Alt-(tapping)F10 command does nothing when the Acer logo opens, even tough the D to D feature is enabled in BIOS. A search for  PQSERVICE brings up nothing but I don't know for sure if a hidden file like that should be accessible to the search function; I would think so. 

 

Yes, I know searching the internet can eventually find answers but I thought it would be more direct to ask here where people who know more about Acer would be, and where perhaps others here would also be interested in the answers to the other questions I posed. 

laurent_14

Hello,

 

When the laptop boot, you have the message "Winnt_root\System32\Hal.dll".

It means the file boot.ini is damaged. See KB314477 Error message 3

I know how to repair it but with the original windows XP CD not with PQSERVICE

Have you tried to recover with CD/DVD? See this french video

BinaryBeast

---

laurent_14 wrote:

Hello,

 

When the laptop boot, you have the message "Winnt_root\System32\Hal.dll".

It means the file boot.ini is damaged. See KB314477 Error message 3

I know how to repair it but with the original windows XP CD not with PQSERVICE

Have you tried to recover with CD/DVD? See this french video

---

Sorry if I wasn't clear in post 1. Error 3, about that missing file,  was the message I was getting before I tried to do the repair but I somehow ended up doing a complete reinstall using all 4 Acer discs which came with the computer. After that, I updated the Win XP to the most recent state and I also installed Microsoft Security Essentials and updated it too. I haven't finished getting everything else back to where it used to be but I did get everything from Microsoft before the XP Support ends. The computer does work now.

 

This thread was started because, in trying to learn what I should have done to fix the original problem, I did find that eRecovery does not open before Windows installs, as it should using the Alt-F10 command. I am one of those old-fashioned people who likes to own things for a long time and I usually like to keep  them in their original condition, so I am wondering about how to see if the hidden partition which contained  the pre-boot eRecovery file is still there, if I can make eReccovery work right if the hidden file still exists,  and what else I can learn about that file and the other questions I asked earlier.

 

miguel69

after clicking the windows orb type diskmgmt.msc in the search box and run it. you will get a display of all drives and partitions,  for XP/VISTA you should have at a minimum 2 partitions on drive0 (a hidden partition {no drive letter} called PQservice, and C: ACER). for the alt+F10 option to work for recovery D2D has to be 'enabled' in the BIOS.