Can't restore from USB on Acer Aspire E5

First of all, the HDD must be unallocated, that means no partitions, prior to use the USB erecovery.

then, have you pressed F12 at boot and choosed the USB as bootable device?

Just tried both of your reccomendations and I was still stuck at the Acer screen.

it looks like a bad USB flash drive, can you check it on another PC?

if it's faulty, the only way to recovery your PC is to buy Acer erecovery media:

Acer recovery media
if you are in the US you can buy it:
http://store.acer.com/store/aceramer/en_US/eRecovery

if you are outside the US, you must call/email your regional Acer support service:
http://www.acer.com/worldwide/support/

It shouldn't be faulty because when I hookeed it up to a Linux recovery disk, it showed one fat32 partition with a boot and lsb flag on the flash drive.

Just checked the flash drive on another computer and it boots fine.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj126997.aspx

You deleted the push button reset. The factory default USB recovery drive relies on it (I think).

To hopefully resolve the issue (if you have Windows 8.1), you can create a USB media drive and install Windows 8.1. After you install Windows 8.1, you can use your factory default backup.

You can skip steps 13 and 14 below since you have a recovery USB.

http://community.acer.com/t5/Software-Solutions-and/Acer-S7-392-Factory-Image/m-p/362689#U362689

Or if you backed up your Acer apps, you can just do a clean install of Windows 8.1 using that Microsoft media link.....and then re-install the apps....or download them at acer.com

All of your drivers will be on Acer's website or windows update.

I am trying it now! I'll notify you when it is done to see if it works. It will take a while though with really slow internet!

Ok good luck. I won't guarantee that your recovery drive will work, but at least you'll have a clean install of windows 8.1.

Now that I think of it, push button reset wouldn't be a factor because you should be able to install the recovery drive on a replacement hard drive. So disregard my push button reset theory.

Would it be possible to hook up the hard drive to another computer and install it onto that? I know that Windows checks if the motherboard is the same but if the installatin is optimised for Acer computers then it wouldn't be a problem, right?

not the best practice.

if you will need to unplug the installed HDD on the PC to use as installation, plug the E5 HDD and the USB and hope it will work.

Have you tried different USB ports?

Yes, I have tried all of the USB ports

http://community.acer.com/t5/Software-Solutions-and/Acer-Recovery-Management-will-not-load-Does-anyone-know-how-I/m-p/364130/highlight/false#M4702

Just to test the USB recovery media, have you tried to boot from it on another PC?

just to check if it loads, then you can quit without installing.

It does load on another PC. I tried to load Windows onto that computer and then boot the recovery drive but it did the same thing.

Thank you for all of your help, but I am just going to send it back to Acer so they can restore it.