Aspire 5600: Loops into eRecovery on boot

I'd like to revive this laptop with its original Acer factory install.

By switching the laptop on, the Acer image appears, with F2 and F12 options, then Windows XP start image is shown followed by eRecovery-Management-Environment load messages.

After few seconds the manager opens with two active options only (I translate from my localisation):

1. System recovery from predefined setup

2. System recovery from CD/DVD

I have no backup CD/DVDs so by selecting the first option, a copy of Windows xp o.s. is indeed transfered from PQSERVICE to Acer partition.

I've checked this by deleting the content of the Acer partition and then running the recovery process.

Therefore, on reboot, the eRecovery manager is loaded again.

No chance to come out of this loop.

Any ideas?

I'm an experienced SW programmer and feel comfortable by putting my fingers into system's meanders so far I understand what I'm doing. ;-)

Accepted answers

Raart

Thanks Jack for the hints.

Finally I could convince the laptop to work like Acer designed.

It was a problem with the MBR being broken for unknown reasons.

I had to search a copy of the original ACER MBR (it can be found in the hidden PQSERVICE partition' root) and write it over the actual one.

That's it.

All comments

JackE

>>>Windows xp o.s. is indeed transfered from PQSERVICE to Acer partition. I've checked this by deleting the content of the Acer partition and then running the recovery process.>>>

What process was used to clean/delete the system partition?

Jack E/NJ

Raart

I've transfered the HD to another PC (with Windows XP on it) and directly deleted the files by the use of windows-explorer.

This to leave the partitions untouched.

Regards.

JackE

If you can confidently identify the partitions, I'd probably try a full (not quick) format on the system partition and double-check its integrity from the other XP PC. Then try it again.

Jack E/NJ

Raart

1. ACER partition deleted

2. Recreated as new with same setup as the original (FAT32, ID:0C, Cluster-size:32K, etc.)

3. Formatted (full format) and surface verified

4. Labelled "ACER"

5. Moved HD to Aspire 5600 and booted

6. eRecovery Manager appears as before

7. Selected to reinstall Windows XP (process ended succesful)

8. Rebooted: eRecovery Manager shows again

By booting from a Windows XP live DVD I could check the Acer partition has been correctly populated.

This may indicate the partition is properly recognized... (as before).

Raart

Just to be shure I temporarily moved the active flag from PQSERVICE to ACER partition and rebooted.

This loaded the Windows XP o.s. and various drivers and applications automatically installed.

Now the laptop is useable (I indeed created the backup disk as requested by eRecovery).

Therefore this isn't the solution I'm looking for because if some day Windows XP will not start I have no way to run eRecovery from the PQSERVICE partition (ALT-F10 doesn't work) to restore or reset either from DVD or the PQSERVICE partition itself (apart from playing with the partition's active flag).

The target is to get the complete original functioning factory install back.

JackE

OK. If you haven't done so already, instead of waiting for eRecovery to automatically load, I'd next try to manually load it by immediately tapping the Alt+F10 boot combo even before the logo screen appears. My reasoning is that, **** in my experience***, eRecovery has NOT automatically loaded when the operating system fails to do so or has otherwise been irreparably corrupted. IOW, I'm ***guessing*** eRecovery might not properly initialize without the proper Alt+F10 combo input.

If that doesn't work, I have another question. How do you know the system was originally shipped with FAT32? The reason I ask is that some XP Acers were shipped with the NT file system. While it's true that recovery media is FAT32, I'm not sure the eRecovery software on the hidden partition on NT-shipped machines was the same since it's also intended to save data in the NT format. As you know, it's easy to convert FAT32 to NTFS but not the other way around without losing data.

Jack E/NJ

JackE

MY last post was before reading your immediately preceding post. I'm not quite sure how and what you tried to do with the hidden eRecovery partition.

Jack E/NJ

Raart

I'll answer to your posts in reverse chronological order.
After following your first suggestion to recreate the system (ACER) partition (and additionally performing a surface test on it, to be sure), I thought I'd check that the installation of Windows XP just made by eRecovery from the data in PQSERVICE is really working, and not the culprit.
The simplest way to verify this is to change the active partition (to system) and reboot, so I followed this way.
This resulted in directly starting Windows XP without passing through the original "PQSERVICE boot sequence", and that's the reason ALT-F10 doesn't work now.

As a further check I compared the actual PQSERVICE partition with its sector/sector backup I prepared before booting into Windows XP directly.
This to verify if the first-run of the new Windows-XP installation has modified the data in PQSERVICE in any way. That's not the case.

I set the active partition flag back to boot into PQSERVICE. A reboot starts the looping process again.

About your other questions.
Yes, I'm pretty confident the laptop has been delivered from the store with all FAT32 partitions.
After a power failure (the battery is unuseable) a friend of mine wasn't able to reboot into Windows and he gave me the laptop (as a gift) without trying anything to get rid of the situation and bought a new generation PC.

"eRecovery software on the hidden partition on NT-shipped machines was the same since it's also intended to save data in the NT format"

This suggests to try to recreate the system partition as NTFS.

"eRecovery might not properly initialize without the proper Alt+F10 combo input"

And this to check if trying the use of ALT+F10 again (now I'm back to the original boot sequence on the hidden partition) can recover whatever is wrong.

Both tests are no-cost and I've a way to rollback by restoring the last complete HD backup I made.

Raart

JackE

Good luck Raart! You're sure putting your fingers into the 5600's meanders a lot more than I'd venture to do. 8^) Keep us posted on results in trying to get it back to a factory-delivered state.

Jack E/NJ

Raart

Thanks Jack for the hints.

Finally I could convince the laptop to work like Acer designed.

It was a problem with the MBR being broken for unknown reasons.

I had to search a copy of the original ACER MBR (it can be found in the hidden PQSERVICE partition' root) and write it over the actual one.

That's it.

JackE

>>>performing a surface test on it>>>

>>>After a power failure (the battery is unuseable) a friend of mine wasn't able to reboot >>>

>>>It was a problem with the MBR being broken for unknown reasons.>>>

Nice work Raart! I guess the power failure is one possible cause for the MBR corruption. Malware another. Failing HD yet another. Hopefully at this point it wasn't the last possible reason since your surface scan seemed OK. Congrats!

Jack E/NJ

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