Recover/Clone Windows 10 - Acer Aspire A515-56G

Hi,

I have Acer Aspire A515-56G and have three questions:

1- I need to recover windows 10 professionnel, when restarting the computer and holding Alt + F10 pressed the recover menu does'nt appear and it seem like this combinaisation is not working on this version of acer laptop. Does some know how get the recover menu for Acer Aspire A515-56G ?

2- I need to know where is the partition that contain Windows 10 installation, here my hadr disk:

3- Is it possible to copy the current license of windows to another computer ? if yes can some one tell us can us do this ?

Thanks for replying

Best regards

//Edited the content to add model name on title.

Accepted answers

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JackE

1) If WinPro was not the factory-installed OEM Win version, then ALT+F10 usually won 't work especially after re-partitioning the drive which your drive has been

2) The C ; \ partition is the Windows system partition. The hidden EFI partition allows Windows C : \ system partition to boot.

3) A non-OEM WinPro license can be transferred following these directions. A factory installed OEM license can NOT.

Can you boot from WinPro drive as-is or not? Why do you need to recover it? If a recent update or software upgrade caused the issue, it can usually be reversed if done soon enough.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-transfer-windows-10-license-new-computer-or-hard-drive

Jack E/NJ

Ano

Hi @JackE

First thanks for you answer and let me give some feed-backs:

1- For the question 1, My laptop has a windows 10 pro frozen in the hard drive, so the ALT + F10 should work which it doesn't. So my question is the problem that caused this malfunction.

2- For the question2, as you know before when we buy a computer, we receive with different CD-ROMS in particular the Windows CD-ROM which is not the case now because windows is frozen in the hard drive of the computer now and my question concerns the location in the hard drive that contains Windows 10 Pro and that let us to recover our windows installation. So in witch partition is stored Windows 10 on the disk?

Best regards

JackE

1) The drive was further partitioned into a D ; \ drive, an E : \ drive and an unallocated partition. This almost always disrupts the ALT+F10 OEM recovery function to return the system and drive to a factory fresh state.

2) The hidden OEM recovery partition is marked as a 512MB hidden recovery partition as shown in your earlier disk manager screenshot. It is a compressed archive of the OEM Windows that is usually located at the end of the drive where the D : \ partition is located. The exact operational nature of the ALT+F10 cold boot recovery method is ACER proprietary and not available to us users on this forum. Other than forum moderators, we are neither ACER employees, contractors or authorized ACER service representatives on this forum, only users such as yourself voluntarily trying to help other users.

Jack E/NJ

StevenGen

Ano said:

Hi @JackE

First thanks for you answer and let me give some feed-backs:

1- For the question 1, My laptop has a windows 10 pro frozen in the hard drive, so the ALT + F10 should work which it doesn't. So my question is the problem that caused this malfunction.

2- For the question2, as you know before when we buy a computer, we receive with different CD-ROMS in particular the Windows CD-ROM which is not the case now because windows is frozen in the hard drive of the computer now and my question concerns the location in the hard drive that contains Windows 10 Pro and that let us to recover our windows installation. So in witch partition is stored Windows 10 on the disk?

Best regards

Firstly and I know its always great to be smart in retrospect but, you should always "Backup Your System Periodically" preferably every day or every week and have your valuable files and data on a "Slave Drive" (which means boot drive on one drive and valuable data on a "Slave" drive) with either the Win-10 internal backup software or a 3rd party backup software(s) like Macrium Reflect v7, EaseUS etc., so that you can recover your boot drive and all the files. Btw. I've been doing this for a very long time and its a 100% assurance of keeping your data safe.

As far as your problems are concerned you can always get to the Windows 10 Reset to Factory Defaults Using Alt + F10 on Startup (click on this link from Acer of how to do this precisely) then, use the "Advanced" then go to > Repair your computer > System Restore (Use a restore point recorded on your PC to restore Windows) to go to the latest of your restore points.
With the boot drive partition and where your Win-10 Pro is? Its stored in the C;\ drive as JackE has pointed out to you.
The reason why your HDD locked can vary considerably, if you have a spinner HDD then it could be the head and/or the spinning SS disk or if its an SSD then it could be numerous electronic circuitry faults that needs an expert to recover your data.
Btw, with recovering your copy of Windows 10 Pro and with your hard drive locked, it depends if its functioning at all? Which you haven't told us? If that is the case then, it cant be "Cloned" as its not functioning and needs repair!

If you have valuable data on the drive? Then I suggest that you take it to a reputable "Data Recovery Technician" and get them to see what is exactly wrong with your drive, as they can repair and recover most of its data (I've had this done and they recovered 99.99% of the data) in their hygienically well tooled workshop and environment, don't do anything e.g. open the drive and/or use a 3rd party recovery software as and if you do, you will cause irrecoverable damage to the data and lose everything.

If you don't need the data then replace the drive and start from scratch and do a "Clean Install" of Win-10 Pro as you don't need a key if you have registered with Microsoft as your key is digitally recorded and you have a "Digital Licence" see here for how to do this from Microsoft at; Activate Windows 10. Good luck and hope this helps.

Ano

Got it,
And thanks again for the amazing answers.

StevenGen

Ano said:

Got it,
And thanks again for the amazing answers.

Glad to help Ano and hope everything works out for you, btw, I would suggest that you put the C:\ boot drive Win-10 Pro on the M.2 SSD (if you have one, which you should have OEM of either a capacity of 128G or 256G or 512G) preferably use a 512GB M.2 which is a B&M keyed M.2 end type (see caption below) and not use the 1TB spinner HDD 5400rpm, SATA-3 6GB/Sec drive as your boot drive.

Also your Aspirer's A515-56G's memory specs are as follows; Memory size - DDR4 SDRAM 2133 MHz (1.2V), up to 32 GB when using two soDIMM modules, DIMM socket number - 2 sockets, Supports memory size per socket - 2GB / 4GB / 8GB / 16 GB, Supports maximum memory size - 32 GB, Supports DIMM type - SO-DIMM memory interface design, Supports DIMM Speed - 2133MHz or 2400 MHz, Support DIMM voltage - 1.2V, Supports DIMM package - Standard JEDEC 260-pin. Cheers and take care.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/6j/el7nn9w7fcd8.jpg

Kingston RBU-SNS8154P3/128G J1 which is an OEM M.2 type drive for the A515-56G

Ano

I have OEM Win version and the only way that let me to go to the Reset factory default menu is by selecting "Change Advanced Sturtup options" in Windows and then click "Restart now" butoton.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/2k/vbuwc75j1zkv.png

So the Alt + F10 is not working despite it is well configured on the UEFI inteface (old bios).

Have a point vue towards this issue ?

JackE

As mentioned earlier, the hidden ACER proprietary archive is only usefjul via the ALT+F10 cold boot method or by an ACER proprietary USB restoration drive that ACER recommends you create when the machine was first booted after purchase. If you try to factory restore from the Windows environment as you're trying to do in your post above, it will ask for this USB restoration drive or, if you didn't make it when first purchased, then a factory USB restoration drive based on the machine SNID that is only available to machines purchased in US and Canada for about $50USD

Ano

The pc contain OEM windows 10 pro and what I am trying to do is to know the way that allows me to reinstall windows as we did before with the CD-ROM supplied with the pc.

As per my understanding, the reinstallation of windows is now done from the hidden partition which contains compressed windows 10.

And what i understood that this is done through the following interface:

And I managed to go to this interface from Windows 10 as explained in the previous post.

What I am looking to do now is to fix the malfunction of Alt + F10 which is correctly configured in the UEFI interface (D2 recovery was enabled), so I restarted the pc but the Alt + F10 does not work yet.

JackE

Forget ALT+F10 if you've got the original factory CD-ROM. Recall that the ALT+F10 method usually doesn't work after the drive has been re-partitioned like yours has. Just boot from the CD-ROM and re-install it. Simply use the 'use a device' option. Jack E/NJ

Ano

I did not receive any CD-ROM, on the contrary, the pc is not equipped with a DVD player, only USB ports. The CD-ROM mentioned in the previous message is to talk about the method of Windows delivery with the purchase of a computer which was CD-ROM and now replaced by OEM factory version.

AL + F10 doesn't work even before partitioning the drive, that was after when I thought about using Ubunto.
And on top of that the partition that contains the OEM factory still exists on the drive and so it's strange if it exists and cannot use it.

So I think that since Alt + F10 doesn't work even before partitioning and the OEM factory still exists on the disk, that leads us back to inferring that there is something that needs to be fixed to use the OEM version existing on the disc and thus be able to reset the Pc to the factory version, that's what I'm looking to do.

JackE

Win10Home is the usual factory installed Win10 version if purchased from ACER. Accordingly, if this was the case, Win10Home would be in the hidden recovery archive. If you purchased this from a reseller with Win10Pro installed, then it's possible the reseller might've installed it over the factory Win10Home. This would also render the ALT+F10 method inoperable. Who sold you this machine? Jack E/NJ

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