Need assistance with eRecovery of Windows 7 on As[ire 3820TG-5464G75nss

I bought my laptop in 2011, which was pre-intalled with Windows 7 Home 64-bit. I have since late last year upgraded to Windows 10 by myself and there were no issues until late last month (March 2017) when I started receiving BSOD situations on booting up, indicating VIDEO_TDR related failures.

I made repeated attempts at remedying the system by restoring to previous build, resetting PC etc, and even reinstalling Windows 10 from a bootable flash drive (the reinstallation being facilitated in part by first, an eRecovery but not to factory OS settings and using the Windows 10 boot media to complete the process). There was momentary hope that I got a breakthrough from the Windows 10 reinstall, but the restored Windows 10 environment was unstable. I believe that the autodetection of the built-in AMD HD 5650 chip results in automatic installation of the AMD driver from the Net within the first few minutes the computer restarts in Windows 10 each time. Once this happens, the BSOD situation re-occurs and I would be back to the same problem. I suspected that there is a conflict between AMD's latest driver and Intel's generic HD driver (which gets installed automatically through the Windows 10 restore).

I then decided to move on by using the eRecovery a second time by reinstalling to factory defaults and factory OS (Windows 7 Home 64-bit) and cleaning out all data. However, a new problem exists now - the computer completes the installation of Windows 7 but when it reboots subsequently, the screen will go blank after the Windows start-up screen appears momentarily with the "Setting up ....for first time..." message on screen.

Please advise how I can get bootable media for my Windows 7 license from Acer product. I have seen on another forum here that I may need to get a third-party software by AOMEI ? Please advise as I believe the eRecovery method for my Acer product predates Acer's arrangement with AOMEI for setting up recovery management packages. Because of this understanding, I believe the solution using AOMEI will not be applicable for my case.

Accepted answers

Unknown

"While I'm not recommending it, If you do decide to tinker with Win10 again please make your own backup media thru control panel so you at least have your own Win7 restore point to get back to if things go haywire. There are reports that some Win10 installations wipe the hidden Win7 recovery partition so there's no way of getting back via the Alt+F10 method without purchasing ACER Win7 erecovery media or making your own. Also, when running Win10 updates, you should always make sure an automatic restore point is set before running the update just in case the Win10 update goes bad as you are already aware of."

I did go ahead to tinker with Win10. This time around, I partitioned my HDD into two drives - one for Win7 and the other for Win10. Any potential issues for this setup in the long run ?

"If you haven't done so already, please mark your problem in this thread as "solved" so that others, who may have had similar Win10 update issues, can reference it."

Ok, will do it shortly. Thank you !

All comments

JackE

Have you checked the BIOS menu settings yet to make sure nothing has changed? If unsure, try default settings. F10 to save and exit to see what happens. Jack E/NJ

Unknown

I did note nothing major has changed in the BIOS settings. The boot device was USB HDD to allow me to boot from Windows 10 bootable flash drive earlier, but I unplugged the USB stick from the computer so that wouldn't have been the cause. For good measure, I reset the BIOS to default settings with F9 and saved and exited with F10. Upon reboot, the screen stil goes blank after 2-3 seconds from the appearance of the "Starting Windows" boot screen, so same situation as before.

Any other ideas ?

JackE

Weird. At first blush, the hardware seems OK. VGA bios v should be 1890. Make sure D2D recovery is enabled in main. Just to be sure, did you do a complete power off for the Alt+F10 erecovery method as per the ACER video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xoMEPfiPQ ? Jack E/NJ

Unknown

"VGA bios v should be 1890. Make sure D2D recovery is enabled in main."

Sorry, I don't understand.

"Just to be sure, did you do a complete power off for the Alt+F10 erecovery method as per the ACER video"

Don't understand - should the complete power-off be before or after the Alt+F10 erecovery method ?

I might have done a "hard" reset by forcing the power off through long-pressing the power button before restarting the computer to boot it from USB stick with Windows 10 boot media (my first attempt at erecovery). Can't remember if this was the same process in my second attempt at erecovery (wipe clean and choose the first option to reinstall factory level Windows 7).

One thing's for sure, there were no multiple restarts of the computer - I heard in the Youtube video at time counter 2:11 that the computer may restart several times - didn't happen for my case (there was only one restart for my case) - after the "supposed" completion of installation of factory-level Windows 7 by the erecovery method, followed by the "supposedly first" restart, the screen goes blank 2-3 secs after the appearance of the "Starting Windows" boot screen.

JackE

Sorry, let do this first. Press and hold power button to shut off machine. Then remove battery & charger. Again, press and hold power for a minute or so to try to drain any residual memory charges. Re-insert battery and charger. Press power button once, then F2 at the Acer splashscreen logo to access the BIOS settings menu. In the Information dropdown, check that the vga version is still 1890. In the Main dropdown, make sure D2D recovery and F12 boot menu is enabled. In the Boot dropdown, make HDD first again if you haven't done so already --- we're trying to get the factory Win7 back onto the machine from the hidden erecovery partition on the HDD. Then save and exit BIOS menu.

Try pressing F12 on exiting the BIOS setting to see if a boot menu appears. If not and you get a black screen again, press and hold the power button again till the machine shuts off. Then press the power button again one time. At the ACER splash screen logo press F12 again to see if you now get a boot menu.

Report back with results before proceeding further.

Jack E/NJ

Unknown

"In the Information dropdown, check that the vga version is still 1890"

VGA Bios Version: BK-ATI VER012.020.000.017.003806 - so it is not "1890". What does this mean ? And should I proceed with the experiment procedure ?

IMG_20170410_015320[1].jpg

JackE

Looks OK, it's a newer BIOS version but in keeping with when you acquired the machine. Now check to make sure D2D recovery and the F12 boot menu are enabled in the MAIN dropdown. And the HDD is the first boot device in the BOOT dropdown. Jack E/NJ

Unknown

"Now check to make sure D2D recovery and the F12 boot menu are enabled in the MAIN dropdown. And the HDD is the first boot device in the BOOT dropdown" and

"Try pressing F12 on exiting the BIOS setting to see if a boot menu appears."

Yes, the boot menu does appear. But I exited the boot menu without saving, leading the prompt to enter into Safe Mode. Upon selecting Safe Mode, the computer's next screen before completing the Safe Mode entry process indicated that it had to restart because it could not complete the Setup process while in Safe Mode.

Upon restarting, when I pressed F12 upon seeing the Acer logo, I could enter the boot menu. I exited without saving. The computer showed the "Starting Windows" screen for two to three seconds before blanking out. So I am back to the same situation as before.

Please advise.

JackE

OK. First shut off all power to the machine by pressing & holding the power button if necessary. Remove all USB drives. We want the machine to try to run the Alt+F10 Windows7 recovery method again ***only from the HDD*** as shown in this erecovery video ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xoMEPfiPQ ---- Follow the video instructions carefully. If successful, this should return your machine to a factory-fresh Windows7 state. Jack E/NJ

Unknown

"We want the machine to try to run the Alt+F10 Windows7 recovery method again ***only from the HDD*** as shown in this erecovery video ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xoMEPfiPQ ----"

Not sure how critical is the "***only from the HDD***" step here, but ok I will do that. In my earlier attempts at applying the Alt+F10 method, I had a 4-port USB 2.0 hub attached to the computer but there were no memory devices attached to the hub, only cables for a laptop cooling fan, USB-powered LED lamp and a Bluetooth headset which was switched off - any issues with those devices being connected to the computer when attempting the Alt+F10 method ?

And it does look promising now that removing the USB hub did improve the situation ! Now at least the computer is installing the factory-default drivers.

JackE

It may take awhile and a couple of re-boots before the factory-fresh Windows 7 has been re-installed. Let us know how it goes. Jack E/NJ

Unknown

Finally, success ! Managed to reinstall Windows 7 at last ! Thank you very much for the final step of suggesting to remove all devices connected to the computer ! Any reason why the USB devices could have been the cause for possibly many of the previous issues ? Caused by device conflicts through the COM bus ?

JackE

Congrats! The hidden Win7 recovery partition is only on the HDD. Accordingly, no other devices that might be bootable should be attached to potentially confuse the BIOS chip and the reason why we wanted the HDD to be first in the BIOS boot priority order.

While I'm not recommending it, If you do decide to tinker with Win10 again please make your own backup media thru control panel so you at least have your own Win7 restore point to get back to if things go haywire. There are reports that some Win10 installations wipe the hidden Win7 recovery partition so there's no way of getting back via the Alt+F10 method without purchasing ACER Win7 erecovery media or making your own. Also, when running Win10 updates, you should always make sure an automatic restore point is set before running the update just in case the Win10 update goes bad as you are already aware of.

If you haven't done so already, please mark your problem in this thread as "solved" so that others, who may have had similar Win10 update issues, can reference it.

Good luck.

Jack E/NJ

Unknown

"While I'm not recommending it, If you do decide to tinker with Win10 again please make your own backup media thru control panel so you at least have your own Win7 restore point to get back to if things go haywire. There are reports that some Win10 installations wipe the hidden Win7 recovery partition so there's no way of getting back via the Alt+F10 method without purchasing ACER Win7 erecovery media or making your own. Also, when running Win10 updates, you should always make sure an automatic restore point is set before running the update just in case the Win10 update goes bad as you are already aware of."

I did go ahead to tinker with Win10. This time around, I partitioned my HDD into two drives - one for Win7 and the other for Win10. Any potential issues for this setup in the long run ?

"If you haven't done so already, please mark your problem in this thread as "solved" so that others, who may have had similar Win10 update issues, can reference it."