There was an error resetting your PC - Acer Aspire V7 481P Factory Reset

abhisekpadhi

I'm badly in need of Suggestions and help. 

 

Here goes my problem - 

 

I had installed 4 OS on my laptop - Acer Aspire V7 481P (Touch,Win8) 

They were - Win8 (Factory default), Ubuntu, RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.4 and 7. - These were required since I work as System Administrator, so i need work with Linux OS. 

I had used the Acer Recovery Management to backup all the default software's , Drivers, Factory reset OS Disk Image.

Now, I have the system recovery image containing the factory default OS and settings. 

 

I tried to uninstall ubuntu and install Linux Mint, and in the due process, unfortunately, I deleted the EFI partiton which caused havoc. Grub got corrupted, so I had to clean the hard disk. 

 

Now, I know that, my laptop has 2 Disks - One is Hard Disk (500GB) and another is SSD (Solid State Drive - 22GB).

 

I deleted all partitions, and cleaned both the drives, since I had already backed up the factory settings disk image from the recovery partition using acer recovery management tool from within windows. 

 

Now, when I boot from factory reset disk image using USB, select complete factory reset -> repartition drives, the reset process goes on till 72 % and then shows error :

 

"There was problem resetting your PC" ,

 

So I went on to check what actually happened behind the scene....

 

I used a ubuntu live usb to boot up the laptop and checked for the disk partitions, I found - 

 

The Factory reset process was installing and repartitioning the 22GB SSD and not the 500GB Hard disk, as a result it could not find enough space so it was quitting after 72% of reset.

 

How to solve this problem, And Factory Reset My Laptop ?

IronFly

It didn't let choose the HDD where to recover?

abhisekpadhi

As far I remember it didn't asked at all 

IronFly

That's strange.

 

by the way, check in BIOS if you can disable the SSD or check boot priority devices, maybe changing that order can forse the installer to install on HDD instead of SSD.

 

i'm just guessing, since i don't own this notebook.

abhisekpadhi

I had completely wiped clean all the Drives , both HDD and SSD, then used the factory reset disk. The first step was selecting keyboard then the process went on, there was no step in selecting any disk, wait let me do the process once again and I'll post the pics of the process here.

abhisekpadhi

May be that will work, let me try

abhisekpadhi

Here are the pics of my bios and the reset process...

1. There was no option to choose the disk, where to reset, or where to install OS (win 8)
2. The reset process once stuck at 45% then jumped to 71% and after 72% , the error was reported

Here are the BIOS photos:- 

 

 

 

 

Here are the photos of the Reset process... Since there were multiple photos so i hosted them on flickr, please take a look.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iamap/sets/72157648384949276/

IronFly

instead of choosing "reset your pc", choose advanced options/system image recovery

since you did the backup, i think you did a system image, so you can put it back.

abhisekpadhi

No help again, windows cannot detect .iso file, to recover. 

So, I go for Repartion and Clean install of OS.

This video clearly explains the process - https://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/27608

 

Unfortunately, in my case when I go for a clean install, The process goes on till 72% and then reports error. What actually happens is that , The reset process actually install's the OS into the SSD, which is merely 22GB in size as a result of insufficient disk space, the Reset process reports error.

IronFly

In the pictures about Boot priority, i only see the SSD on the list, can you switch it to the HDD?

 

have you already try that?

abhisekpadhi

Disk 0 is HDD - That is listed in boot priority option.

Disk 1 is SSD - That is not listed in bios.

 

So,in the bios boot priority pics you can see the 500GB Hard Disk listed and not the 22GB SSD.

So, I went on to install windows 8.1 from a different Image that I had downloaded from Microsoft site, So, its unactivated now. This is just for testing purposes, I installed all the drivers, that I had backed up, and everything works fine.

 

Then again went on to reset the laptop with my reset disk, it detected windows 8.1 and present me with some extra option's which were of no use to my problem and again I went to Clean and Repartion and Clean Install using the reset disk.

 

Unfortunately, the process stopped at 72% again and showed the error. Since the system was not properly resetted, so i could boot to my present state, and above is the screenshot what I've now. 

 

It clearly shows, the reset disk and the reset process install's OS into SSD and not HDD.

 

Help needed.

IronFly

Ok got it, you did all your best and i can't help you further, sorry.

Blayn-Acer

At this point, I don't have a whole lot of suggestions that would be helpful. I can say that our recovery software for this system is designed to install to the HDD, and use the SSD for caching of the OS. I am not sure if altering the drive partitioning has caused it to try to install to the SSD, or why it would attempt that. If you remove the SSD, will the recovery software install to the HDD?

abhisekpadhi

Hi,

 

I'm repeating the process from beginning.

1. Deleting all partition in both the disks, such that both the disks report unallocated.
2. Creating the Factory Reset Disk (USB) again from the .iso image file.
3. Booting the laptop (Acer Aspire V7 481P) using the Factory reset disk (USB).

I'll be taking photos of each step and post here again, maybe then the solution can be found out. If the problem persisits, I'd go ahead and open the laptop and disconnect the SSD, to test whether the Reset Disk install's into HDD or SSD. 

 

I'd be needing a day. 

 

Our college provides something called ICT cell who takes care of all our laptop problems, since we got our laptop from college. last resort will be taking my laptop to them. 

 

 

abhisekpadhi

Finally, I took it to my college, since our college has got a dedicated service center for ACER specifically for this Laptop model (Acer Aspire v7 481P) since everyone of us were given the same model. 

 

The service center technician said, The HDD is damaged and need to be replaced. And the story end here, as I'll have a new HDD and my laptop reset to factory defaults. 

 

But, I tried to install Windows 8 from a different disk , other than the Factory reset disk, into my HDD (500GB) and I was able to do that. But unfortunately, factory reset disk could not install the OS into HDD rather it installs into SSD which was my problem. Then how can the HDD be damaged. 

 

What is think the solution could have been - I could have installed OS (windows 8 64bit) manually on SSD and then used intel Rapid Storage Technology software for setting SSD caching in my laptop manually. In that way the factory reset would not have been required at all.

 

I do understand that HDD and SSD were in RAID in my laptop. Maybe my actionof completely deleting the partition and wiping both the disks using linux could have broke the RAID, as a result of which the factory reset disk could not detect the HDD and installs into SSD. 

 

Again, if the Disk's were in hardware RAID, which they should be in, then how come deleting partitions and wiping the disks in linux affect the RAID ? 

 

Need answers. 

IronFly

1) if windows 8 installation worked and your recovery disk not, in my opinion the HDD is good

2) if the RAID is hardware and not software, OS installation CAN'T broke it

3) if RAID was software the recovery disk must had the information to repair it to the original state

 

i'm really curious about the HDD fix