How to create an Acer recovery drive in the newer Windows 11 acer A515-45-R1BF

Andrepartthree

(this is a situation where I kind of answered my own question here :) , hoping this will help someone else out if this thread pops up on a google search )

So in the newer acer laptops running Windows 11... in my case it's the A515-45-R1BF model (Acer Aspire 5 ryzen 7 amd processor model) ... I noticed the strangest thing, the acer care center does not appear to have the "recovery drive" option ... it's always a good idea to have a 16 GB or bigger usb drive you can use to create a bootable usb drive that will restore Acer to it's "factory reset" condition , that will restore the laptop to the condition it was in when you first bought it. Of course it would suck losing all your programs and files but if your laptop simply isn't working it's better to at least try this and hope this gets the laptop up and running again.

After fiddling around with my laptop I found that a search on the Windows 11 searchbar for "recovery drive" turns up an app by that exact same name "recovery drive", click on that and it brings you right to the same window you used to be able to get to using the acer care center.. exact same dialogue as before on the window, " create a recovery drive even if your pc can’t start you can use a recovery drive to reset it" and so on (you want to make sure to click "yes" to whether or not you want system files stored on the usb drive too) ... personally I think it's rather strange the acer team didn't simply include that function in the acer care center as something you could click on too for people who have previously purchased acer laptops and are used to it being there in the acer care center.

As far as how to boot from that usb recovery drive, make sure you hit "F2" when you turn your PC on to get to the boot menu, go to the boot option, and use the F6 key to bump the usb drive up to the top of the list then exit saving changes.. you'll probably want to go back and undo that change in the bios after recovering your laptop back to it's original condition.

Given how much it would suck losing all your programs and files you could try a free option like Macrium Reflect though it's worth noting the free option will no longer come with any security updates and has limited functionality (but if you're just looking to create a system image of the drive your laptop boots off of and save it as a backup say every month or so it should work fine for that long as you remember to do it each month I'm sure you could set a reminder on your phone or computer or what not) .. there's other free backup software you can research and install too although also worth noting that I haven't personally tried using Macrium Reflect to restore an acer laptop ... I have however heard glowing recommendations for it from practically everybody on the internet after doing research on it. If you prefer the paid version I know this past Black Friday the paid licensed version (you pay once for the license and you're done so a better deal in my opinion than the subscription models for other backup software) was on sale for half price but worth noting a lot of people are perfectly happy with the free version Macrium provides. I can tell you from personal experience there are a lot of people (myself included) having problems with Acronis True Image if you're not on their subscription model plan which kind of sucks I enjoyed using the pay for one license and you're done version of Acronis but sadly that doesn't seem to play well with Windows 11 whereupon I noted the free version of Macrium Reflect installed and worked just fine on Windows 11.

Anyways I hope that helps someone who ran into the same question I did :)

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/678261/how-to-create-an-acer-recovery-drive-in-the-newer-windows-11-acer-laptops

Thank you for posting this very useful and informative post regarding BACKING UP YOUR SYSTEM that not many users do or bother with on their computers, which imo is essential and a big mistake if you don’t do so, as that is why you have so many users on this forum wanting advice whenever their boot drives crash😁. The Windows Recovery Drive (read this guide of what Windows Recovery does) does not recover your personal files but recovers windows and reinstalls windows fresh and like its a new install and then it will update all windows updates and drivers and you will lose your personal files and apps. For a full personal file/folder and OS restore you need to use a backup app like Macrium Reflect or EASEUS TODO backaups.

I use to use the Free Macrium Reflect version as a backup and restore for a Win-10 system and it worked perfectly and I’ve also restored a laptop 100% with the software and it was really easy and it worked perfectly and restored my laptop exactly to where my last backup was but not my files (lucky that I had a slave drive for my personal files) as the free version doesn’t backup your personal files. The only big advantage that Macrium Reflect has is that it has the Boot Recovery Option that the recovery software is always there for you to do a recovery anytime and anywhere if you have the Macrium Reflect full backup files and personal folder files (for the paid version) anytime.

I’m using the paid for EASEUS TODO backup which also backs up all my personal files and folders also and is as good as the Macrium Reflect, as it was allot cheaper when I bought it years ago and I'm still using it monthly to back my computers, the only thing and difference with EASEUS is that you can only restore your PC if you have the EASEUS TODO BACKUP WinPE Bootable USB handy with you, as they don’t have an option of the recovery software at boot like Macrium Reflect.

Andrepartthree

thank you StevenGen :) ... between your post and the one below that I cannot believe I forgot to include in my original post (read this over, aphanic gives a wonderful guide with pictures/screenshots walking you through exactly how to use macrium reflect free edition)

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/610886/guide-how-to-back-up-a-system-or-clone-a-drive-with-macrium-reflect#latest

it's reassuring to know that people in the acer community have successfully used the free version of macrium reflect to restore their acer computer .... with all the different partitions (recovery drive and so forth) you have to restore plus the fact that I see it as the "acer version of windows" I'm always a bit nervous compared to say the person who builds their own desktop PC and then buys and installs their own version of windows (which I've also done but... well I have yet to come across a kit that lets you assemble your own laptop :P so I tend to default to the acer aspire laptops as a purchase).

I wish I could tell people based on my own personal experience that Macrium reflect free will work just as well restoring Windows 11 as it does Win 10 , I find myself wondering if that is the case given how Windows 11 does the secure boot thing and so forth (total speculation on my part, I have no idea how secure boot works and/or how and if it affects recovering an image)... and like most people I find myself hoping I'll never have to restore from a backup and that the laptop continues to happily chug along it's way doing it's thing :) , I am incredibly lucky for example in that my 7 year old acer aspire laptop has not once needed to have windows restored back onto it and is still happily chugging along ... having said that especially given that macrium reflect is free and that I have read reports online of people who use Win 11 successfully using it to restore their Win 11 installation (and obviously of course if you're using Win 10 or below ) I absolutely encourage people to use it... or the free version of Ease US Todo .... something, ANY sort of free backup software to at least have that image ready and waiting to be restored from. Based on my internet research a lot of people are extremely happy with Macrium Reflect and actually prefer the free version of it to the paid version of Acronis I am using on my Windows 10 computers which kind of blew my mind :P

I have no idea how bad of an idea it would be to go on using the free version of Macrium Reflect now that they've stopped offering security patches for it (though again I would argue a backup image without security patches is a lot better than no backup at all) ... I know as far as pricing it's $70 for a license which is pretty expensive but it's a lifetime license... apparently on Black Friday in the past it's been discounted to half price. In the long run less expensive than paying basically forever for a subscription model of backup software... but the advantage to a subscription model is that they typically offer cloud based storage which is really nice, as long as you can get online you can restore that image of your Windows installation from the online server they're storing it on... there are some horror stories out there about viruses that lock up EVERY hard drive on your computer until you pay the ransom (and they may even refuse to unlock the drives if you pay the ransom anyways) ... so that bootable usb drive is in my opinion absolutely mandatory at least you can get your laptop up and running back to the default acer factory condition and hopefully with the macrium reflect bootable usb drive you can even restore your laptop including files to the way it was.

If you're lucky enough to have a computer with two hard drives... for example the acer aspire laptops often come with a hard drive kit that lets you install a second hard drive into the laptop... I'd recommend creating that backup image onto the second hard drive in case your "C" windows drive gets so corrupted that even the backup image on it is lost ...alternately external hard drives that connect by a usb cable have been going down in price steadily (definitely look for deals on them around black friday , I signed up for alerts on the slickdeals website and have snagged some great deals that way as long as you take the time to set alerts for the deals you're looking for) , I would argue it's worth the price to buy one of those and create an image on that too using macrium reflect or ease us todo or what not at least every few months ... and while you're at it frequently (say once a week or at least once a month) save the important files you would be upset about losing onto that external drive too... unplug the drive to keep it safe from that hacker attack I mentioned earlier and just keep it lying around and hope you never have to use it to restore an image or files or what not but it's worth the peace of mind to have it handy and ready to go :) ...

Somewhat unrelated but worth bearing in mind ... if you're looking at buying a new acer desktop or laptop do your research and make sure it's capable of being upgraded to Windows 11, the hardware requirements can be somewhat demanding. Some acer desktops and laptops at the time I type this are still being sold with Windows 10 on it and while that's fine right now, come October 2025 when Microsoft stops releasing security patches for Windows 10 that's going to be a real problem for the hapless Windows 10 user... personally if it was me I would look for a computer with an SSD drive that it boots from (2.5 form factor or the "stick shaped" m.2 drive, stick shaped is faster) and 16 GB of ram or alternately make sure you can add an SSD drive and/or ram to it (another reason why I like the acer aspire laptops , the upgradability options) to boost it's performance if necessary... it's been my experience that just because you can upgrade a PC from an earlier to later version of Windows doesn't mean it won't slow down the PC, our poor family friend had this experience when he listened to Microsoft and upgraded to Win 10 on his laptop and sure it's got those security patches and that's very important but now it runs a heck of a lot more slowly given how more demanding Win 10 is compared to Win 7 or Win 8 or whatever he had on his laptop previously (I tried to help him speed up the laptop as best as I could but there was a limit to what I could do) .. the bigger the hard drive the better and I'd say at least a ryzen 3 AMD processor or intel core i3 processor.. just because the PC meets the minimum requirements to run Win 11 doesn't mean it will do so smoothly so beware.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1175664#Comment_1175664

Yes, I realize that Acer doesn't have an image backup feature included in their Acer Care Centre software, but Acer doesn't need to have any backup software if users read and know what is included in their windows OS😁 as Windows have had a backup and restore software since Win-7 through Control Panel >Backup and Restore (Windows 7) >Create a system image, and the method that you included above is a windows method to freshly restore a crashed OS if the user wants a clean install/restore of their OS (without restoring their files and apps and start fresh) with the Recovery Drive method, which the Image Backup and Restore is the same and is just as good as purchasing the Macrium Reflect 8 or EASEUS TODO or any other backup software, as it backs up everything apps, folders and all files that are on boot drive C;\ and creates a frozen image of your C:\ drive, and of course you can update that periodically to keep an up to date image, if you don't have a slave drive for your valuable files, and you don't have to spend money on any backup software (myself included 😁 with buying EASEUS TODO),

With the windows included Image Restore these are the two methods to restore after you did an Image Backup and baked it up onto either your slave or an external HDD:

1. Recovering windows and files when Windows still starts
2. This is the main reason why you should do an Image Backup - as its mainly to Recover Windows when it does not start, or you can’t boot your PC - next, restart your PC and repeatedly press the F9 key until the recovery screen appears, . Alternatively, or if F9 doesn’t work, you should see the recovery menu appear automatically after a few failed startup attempts.

Which there are many guides on the web and its basically this; Windows has a system image backup which is an exact copy of your entire C: drive that contains your active installation of Windows, all of the apps you installed, and all the configuration and data files for those apps. They are preserved frozen in place as if encased perfectly in ice. After a system drive failure, you can restore this system image to a new drive and get back up and running as if nothing ever changed—no re-installation of Windows or apps necessary. Of course, you capture lots of extra data you might not always need in a regular backup, so a system image is ideal mostly for wanting to preserve the exact state of a Windows system.

Andrepartthree

That is an excellent point and something I completely forgot about thank you for mentioning that!

Me personally since I'm the paranoid sort I would want to do exactly what you described above as far as creating a system image using the tool built into Windows and also use say Macrium Reflect free to create an image, so if one doesn't work the other does.... plus the bootable usb drive (or drives if you're like me and have the bootable acer recovery drive and the bootable macrium reflect drive) in a worst case scenario where you do end up with one of those nasty "hijack viruses" that lock you out of every single drive on the computer... hopefully not but you never know, I had one very nice relative use my computer and install a virus on it without even realizing she did it :P (she was sending an email greeting card and ended up using a not so great website to do so but that's on me for not setting up and having her use a guest account with limited privileges such that she couldn't install anything even accidentally to begin with).

Also .. and completely forgot to mention this earlier ! ... a cheap usb 2.0 , 16 GB or bigger thumb drive will work just fine as far as creating the recovery drives... during Black Friday sales I've found that amazon discounts the PNY brand of usb 2.0 , 32 GB drives to as cheap as.. trying to remember maybe four or five dollars per usb drive? Of course you get what you pay for and some of them are defective right off the bat so you'd want to test them... transfer a file onto it , preferably a file you can edit (say a text file) right there on the thumb drive, transfer the file back onto windows and see if the file survived and is still in the same format (so again you'd want to look for the "shipped by amazon" and "free returns" option, pain in the butt having to drop it off at your local ups store for a refund but if you're doing it around black friday sale time you have a very long return window.. until January 31st if memory serves me correctly.. and you can just wait and gather up all the stuff you'll inevitable return through your local UPS store and do it all at once, this is just a given for me every holiday season).. so order enough of them to have recovery drives for all your acer computers... . I imagine a usb 3.0 speed drive would work faster and be just fine too though I haven't personally tested it since I'm cheap and go for the usb 2.0 drives for recovery drive purposes - and there are sales on those too, right now the pny usb 3.0 , 32 gb drive is selling for five dollars on amazon... ebay is an option to get them cheap too long as it's from a reliable seller.

Andrepartthree

Well darn it .. guys no way to go back and edit my first post I guess it's been too long since I last posted it so I sure hope someone scrolls down and reads this too…

I WAS WRONG ! Macrium Reflect as of January 2023 only gives you a 30 day trial period.. they'll extend it another 7 days but after that you can only restore backups you made during that 37 day period you cannot make new backups.

AEOMI Backupper and Ease Us Todo are apparently also good backup choices… However I keep hearing about how Macrium Reflect is loved by pretty much everyone online… a lifetime license key is very expensive at $70 (albeit less so than subscription based models)… I encourage you all to mark your calendars (outlook, google calendar, whatever program/app you use) for Macrium's Black Friday sales.. last year they discounted their licenses to half price and if rumor is correct a $70 license dropped to $35 whereupon their four pack of licences dropped from normal price $140 to $70 for four licenses (you purchase one license per computer) … having said that money is tight for everybody nowadays I know this :) … so if you can't afford it go with AOEMI Backupper or Ease US Todo free versions.