Acer Iconia Tab W500P Recovery DVDs not working

Long story short... I have been given an Acer Iconia Tab W500P (w/ keyboard dock) that previous owner had attempted to reinstall and activate Windows 7 Professional on so that I may attempt to salvage it for them. Instead of using the recovery partition to reset the system, they had used an OEM Windows 7 image and found that they were unable to activate Windows using the product key that they located and saved using LicenseCrawler.

When they reinstalled Windows 7 Pro, the recovery partition was deleted from the drive, so reinstalling Windows from there is not an option. Luckily (or so it would seem), they had kept the recovery DVDs that came with the Iconia Tab (a 2-disc set).

When I attempt to boot from Disc 1 of the recovery DVDs using an external DVD drive, it goes through the "Windows is loading files..." screen and then to the green and white "Acer eRecovery Management" loading screen. From there, it provides a "Please wait a momemt..." message, but then does not do anything else or proceed further with the recovery process. It will eventually just proceed to load the unactivated Windows 7 Pro installation. Every subsequent attempt to boot from the recovery DVD yeilds the exact same result.

Has anyone had the same issue with the Acer recovery DVDs and/or know of a solution to this issue?

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JackE

>>>It will eventually just proceed to load the unactivated Windows 7 Pro installation. Every subsequent attempt to boot from the recovery DVD yeilds the exact same result.>>>

If it loads the original factory Win7 Pro, it should temporarily boot to Win7 Pro whether it's activated yet or not. Jack E/NJ

mburton129

Yes, but it does not continue with the recovery process from the DVDs at all once it does this.

I have read, however, that the DVDs may work if I go ahead and format the drive and attempt to install from the recovery DVDs to a completely blank drive. Does anyone have any experiences to support that?

mburton129

Also, it is not the original Acer factory Windows 7 Pro that it was booting into. The owner of the tablet had performed a clean install of Windows 7 Pro using a disc image obtained from Microsoft years ago. The factory image / recovery partition / OS installation is no longer on the drive.

I usually never experience issues activating Windows using product keys from HP, Dell, etc. even when I use the same disc image from Microsoft to reinstall Windows. This time, however, it does not activate. I contacted Microsoft and they advised the product key was blocked by the machine due to a hardware change and to contact Acer. I contact Acer and they say that the Iconia Tab is out of warranty and to contact Microsoft (even though the Acer-supplied recovery DVDs aren't working either). It's not really worth paying for a new and authentic Windows 7 COA, so are we just SOL with this Iconia Tab due and Acer's inability to provide reliable recovery media? I mean... what good are recovery discs when you can't use them without the recovery partition? How is a person supposed to recover their OS after a drive failure without buying a new product key?

Also, I attempted to run the recovery DVDs after using Gparted to format and partition the drive. I get the same "Windows is loading files > Please wait a moment" sequence, except how it just halts the process and goes to and stays on a black screen.

Looks like it's down to running a cracked version of Windows or replacing the system with a newer product from a more reliable manufacturer.

JackE

If you're in the US or Canada, go to store.acer.com. Click US or Canada. In the upper right hand corner click eRecovery. Then order either the USB or DVD eRecovery Win7 installation media that is specific to the W500P. Cost around $20. Jack E/NJ

mburton129

I already have the eRecovery media that originally came with the Iconia Tab, but it does not work. As I've described, the system will boot from the recovery media, but will not go any further than the "Please wait a moment message..." and will not actually begin the recovery process.

I've already given the tablet back to the owner. They don't want to sink anymore money into it / don't want to buy another copy of the faulty recovery media that they already have and are just going to run a cracked version of Windows 7 on it.

JackE

>>>Also, it is not the original Acer factory Windows 7 Pro that it was booting into. The owner of the tablet had performed a clean install of Windows 7 Pro using a disc image obtained from Microsoft years ago. The factory image / recovery partition / OS installation is no longer on the drive.>>>

This sorta threw me off. I didn't think they had the original media. Because when the hidden eRecovery partition was originally on the original HDD, the eRecovery media usually weren't included. Jack E/NJ

doughjohn

Hi

I was thinking of suggesting clonezilla, as along with Gparted, you can sometimes find/recover lost or hidden/missing partitions, but fear it is already too late to recover anything.

However I do try and go into repair area of an install disk and do a DIR command and see what setup.exe variants there are. Sometimes setup.exe is listed and just typing it with /? after can give switches to force thru an install.