Have an Acer Aspire MA52 with W8.1. How to recover the 'Recovery' partition.

sumdumgai

I may have destroyed the recovery partition when I used EaseUS Partition Master to split the C: partition into two partitions.  Can someone please advise on how to recover the partitions necessary for recovery?  When I do to Advanced Startup, I do not get a 'Troubleshoot' option.

 

Thanks.

philetus

Can you open Disk Management and post a screenshot of it?

sumdumgai

philetus

The EFI partition should be the first partition. Do you know what all the OEM partitions are? If disk management will let you give the 400mb partition a drive number, you can see if it's empty.

 or what it has in it. It needs to be out from in front of the EFI partition.

You should make an image of your current HDD before you change anything.

IronFly

if you mean that Acer recovery management is not working, this can happen when you make changes to partitions scheme and the system lost the recovery tag on the specific partition.

 

you can try this solution:

 

the Acer recovery is the last (17GB)

1 - so let's try this:
windows key logo + r
type
diskpart
on diskpart
type
list volume
now check the volume number of the 17GB partition
type
select volume x
(x is the volume number of the 17GB partition)
type
detail partition

take note of "offset" value and "type" (guid) value

2 - Open the XML file C:\Windows\System32\Recovery\ReAgent.xml (don't use wordpad but download a free XML editor like:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xml-copy-editor/ ). Locate the line "PBRImageLocation". Set its offset and guid accordingly to the values you found above.

3 - Open a new command prompt or Windows PowerShell with admin rights (press windows key logo + s; type cmd ;right click it and select "run as administrator") and enter reagentc /disable, followed by reagentc /enable.

 

You should now be able to create a Recovery drive, just follow this instructions (or try with Acer erecovery):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-usb-recovery-drive

sumdumgai

Disk Management will not let me assign a drive letter to any of the OEM partitions.  The 400MB, 350MB, and the 17GB partitions show only 'Help' when right clicked.  The 300MB EFI partition shows more options when right clicked, but all are greyed out except 'Help'.  All of the OEM partitions show free space equal to capacity.

 

Thanks for helping.

sumdumgai

Thanks for helping.

 

Diskpart/List Volume lists only 3 volumes:

Volume 0 = C drive Acer 200GB Boot

Volume 1 = D drive Data 247GB

Volume 2 = ESP FAT32 300MB System

 

So I cannot get the volume number of the 17GB partition.  Any other way to get volume number?

IronFly

On diskpart

type

select disk 0

type

list volume

check if all volumes appear, if not

list partition

check if all partitions appear

select partition x

(x is the number of the 17GB partition)

detail partition

 

then follow the instruction in my previous post

sumdumgai

Here's more/different information using EaseUS Partition Manager:

 

IronFly

Try the diskpart command i wrote above, use partition instead of volume.

 

EDIT: if you run Acer erecovery software from your pc, did you get an error or it works?

 

if it works you don't need to "recover" the recovery, you can try also to boot pressing ALT+F10 and check if Acer recovery starts, then skip it and reboot to your OS.

sumdumgai

Thanks.  I figured that I lost the 'Recovery' partition because when I do Advanced Startup/Restart, I do not get a 'Troubleshoot' option, only 'Continue' and "Shut Down'.

sumdumgai

Thanks.  I suspect that I lost the 'Recovery' partition because I cannot get to 'Troubleshoot' off of the 'Advanced Startup/Restart' commands.  I only get 'Continue' and 'Shut Down'.

sumdumgai

OK, running Acer Recovery Management seems to run and gives me three options: Restore Factory Settings, Customized Restore (Retain User Data), and Reinstall Drivers or Applications. 

 

When I reboot and depress Alt-F10, I get the 'Troubleshoot' option, but 'Advanced Options' does not yield 'Startup Settings', which is what I originally wanted (to disable driver signature). 

 

When I go through 'Settings/Change PC Settings...Recovery/Advanced Startup/Restart , I do not get the 'Troubleshoot' option.

IronFly

ok, so your Acer recovery is here, i suggest you to do an USB recovery media with Acer erecovery, this will help you to re-install the OS as factory default, even if your HDD die.

 

the only problem is the ALT+F10 combination that doesn't start the Acer erecovery, since it's not marked as main recovery.

at this point i would only do the USB media as mentioned above and leave the partitions as are.

sumdumgai

I can't do a List Partition without first selecting a volume, and I can't select a volume that doesn't show under List Volume.

 

Thanks.

sumdumgai

Will doing "USB recovery media with Acer recovery, this will help you to re-install the OS as factory default" cause loss of all data and installed applications?

 

And sorry, but I'm not familiar with USB Recovery with Acer recovery.  What does it do? When I launch Acer Recovery Management, it tells me to not remove the USB device.  What USB device are they referring to?  Also, which option would I select?

 

Thanks.

IronFly

list partition must work if you select the disk correctly.

 

by the way, do the USB media recovery using the Acer erecovery and in my opinion do a backup of your files and re-install to factory default using the USB recovery media.

sumdumgai

When I do Diskpart/Select Disk 0/List Partition, here's what I get:

 

sumdumgai

More info.  When I execute 'Acer Recovery Management/Customized Restore', I get: "Hard drive configuration is not set to factory default. Restore aborted.  Same error message with: Create Factory Default Backup.

IronFly

select partition 7

 

then

 

detail partition

 

take note of "offset" value and "type" (guid) value

2 - Open the XML file C:\Windows\System32\Recovery\ReAgent.xml (don't use wordpad but download a free XML editor like:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xml-copy-editor/ ). Locate the line "PBRImageLocation". Set its offset and guid accordingly to the values you found above.

3 - Open a new command prompt or Windows PowerShell with admin rights (press windows key logo + s; type cmd ;right click it and select "run as administrator") and enter reagentc /disable, followed by reagentc /enable.

 

You should now be able to create a Recovery drive, just follow this instructions (or try with Acer erecovery):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-usb-recovery-drive

 

 

 

sumdumgai

OK.  Downloaded the xml editor as you suggested and updated the PRImageLocation to the value found at 'Type' on the Partition 7 detail screen.  The offset value had not changed.  When I run (as administrator) the 'reagentc /disable' cmd, I got an 'Operation failed: 3' followed by 'An error has occurred.'  Same thing when I ran the disable.

 

Thanks for your help.  Any ideas? I noticed that threre are other values in the xml file that were the same as the one that I changed.  WinreLocation path and DownLevelWinreLocation path.  Here is the xml file listing after I changed PRImageLocation: