aoa150 recovery - a friend changed original os and want it back to original factory settings

This is a common problem for those who have installed a different OS on an Acer Aspire One.

Often, the new OS is installed without wiping out the original recovery partition. But the new OS can't see the recovery partition and therefore, pressing ALT F10 doesn't boot you into it. This can be fixed. And it's not hard.

The usual reason ALT F10 doesn't work is because the original boot record was overwritten when you (or your friend) installed Win 7 (or another OS). You can fix that.

Instructions are here: http://aspiregemstone.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-activate-acer-hidden-partition.html

If you have any problems with those instructions, read through the comments on that page. Your problem has probably been solved.

Essentially, what you need to do is to use a program that lets you see and edit the hidden partitions on your hard drive, and do a tiny bit of editing to make it so the current OS can see the recovery partition and to make the recovery partition active. (When done, you may need to use the same program and go in and make the OS active so that the computer will boot the OS and not into the recovery partition.)

Sorry I did not look back in here sooner.

So I take it that:

-1- You found you DO have the recovery partition on the drive still and that it is active; and 
-2- Hitting Alt F10 at startup does not boot you into it.

Could be several things. One is a snap to fix if it is the issue. Others are a bit more complicated.

Here are some things to look into.

-1- D2D Recovery may be disabled in BIOS. (Solution -- Enter BIOS and enable it.)

How to access BIOS:

Shut down your Acer if it is running. Once the computer is off, press the power button to start it. Repeatedly tap the F2 key immediately while your computer is booting up and displaying the Acer logo. Keep pressing F2 until the BIOS Setup screen appears.

In Bios go to Main menu. Drop down to D2D Recovery. Enable it. Hit F10 to save and exit.

(Then restart the computer, tapping the ALT and F10 keys simultaneously at startup and see if it boots you into the Recovery options. If not, try using a Windows XP startup disk -- assuming that you have a CD or DVD writer-reader and made an emergency startup disc back when you were running XP and that you still have it. It should let you boot into Recovery. You may need to go into BIOS and change boot order to make the external DVD player first boot option, if it's not already set to that. If you don't still have a startup disc on hand and/or it still won't boot into Recovery sector for you, then)

-2- Master Boot Record may be corrupted.

I have a disc called Easy Recovery Pro that I paid about $50 for that automatically fixes that. And that's my lazy approach to this issue. I assume you don't have that and don't want to spend $50 to find out if it will fix it. 

Found some instructions here that may help:

http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/19281-acer-recovery-partition.html

Read the "Third Cause" section in particular. (I am copying and pasting here much of the article from sevenforums.com). Following is all quoted material:

Here is an article on Acer Recovery with other options if [pressing Alt F10 at startup] does not work.

This tutorial can also help to do it on other computer brands

Disclaimer : First of all you must be aware that some of the operations to come can cause irreversible change on your hard disk, I recommend to you and I will never make it enough make a backup of your system before launching you in any hazardous operation. Any damage and/or modification done on your system will be under your whole responsibility. The following procedures were done on a Acer Aspire 5102wlmi and some also functioned on a Dell Inspiron 9400/1705.

As you know, the Acer computers and those of other manufacturers are now delivered with a system of restoration installed in a hidden partition of your hard disk. This system launches out while pressing keys ALT+F10 simultaneously. And sometimes for various reasons this system ceases functioning.

The first cause often comes owing to the fact that function D2D Recovery is disable in the bios (menu principal).
The solution : enable the function and try to press keys ALT+F10 during the starting of the computer.

The second cause : in this case hidden partition PQSERVICE was erased or damaged, or you replaced the disc and in this case it is not present.
The solution : If you did not previously make a backup of your system by making an image disc. It will not be possible to use the D2D recovery. Your only hope will be to have in your possession Acer Recovery CD/DVD.

***** And the third causes : the Acer Master Boot Record (MBR)was damaged or replaced by non-Acer MBR. As long as partition PQSERVICE is present or that you can put the hand on the necessary Acer files you can reinstall the MBR of Acer.
The solution :
First method : on a functional Windows system:
1 disable the D2D recovery option of the bios.
2 open a Windows session with an account administrator.
3 Download, unzip and launch partedit32(registration required for download).
4 Identify the Pqservice partition by its size (at the bottom of the partedit window there is a partition information box) it is a small sized partition approximately 2 to 6 Go.Once made change the type of your partition into 0C and save. Restart and open a session with an administrator account, you should be able to navigate to the PQservice partition. Seek these two files mbrwrdos.exe and rtmbr.bin once localised open a command prompt and launch this command mbrwrdos.exe install rtmbr.bin, this will install the Acer MBR. Close the command prompt window restart again Windows go into the bios and reactivate the D2D recovery. Now ALT+F10 should launch Acer recovery at the starting of the computer.

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Hope that helps.

Anton, this article may help you also:
https://nerdfortress.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/restore-xp-on-the-acer-aspire-one-how-to-restore-xp-from-the-acer-aspire-one-hidden-partition/

Am pretty sure that tutorial worked for me a few years back. I saved it, with an exclamation point, in my "computer fixes" folder on my hard drive.

Frankly, I'm not a certified geek, just a guy who's had to figure out his own various generations of computers and operating systems since 1982 and has done it hit or miss until he gets it. And nowadays, Googles sites like this and Bleeping Computer like crazy and, like you, posts questions when he has a problem he can't figure out.

I may have taken you as far as I know how to without having your computer in hand to play with and experiment with.

One more advice I WILL offer:

When following tutorials you find on these help forums, always always read through the comments people have left. Often inadvertent mistakes in the original instructions are corrected there. Often challenges people had while following the instructions are solved there. Sometimes there has been a typo in a code line in the instructions that needs to be changed and, once changed, solves everything for you. 

I know it's a pain and takes awhile, but it's the only way I know to really figure these things out and learn.

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I only jumped into try to help here because I have solved this issue a couple times on Acer netbooks for myself and others when I've had the netbooks at hand. But I think the last time I did it was 2013 and I may be in over my head now trying to help you online in this forum. What I know is that if the recovery partition is still on the drive there is a way to get to it and recover XP. I've done it. And it involved rebuilding the master boot record. But I don't remember all the precise steps right now. IronFly has told you how to see the partition, if it's there. (I'm sorry, I thought from your first response to me that you had already found it.) 

One last thing: I understand you want to roll back to XP, and that's up to you. However, I've found Windows 7 to be even more stable and useful. (Am still trying to decide whether that is true of Windows 10.) Almost every week now, some other program, app or service is upgraded and no longer works well or right with XP, or no longer gets security updates or other support on XP computers. You might want to rethink rolling back to XP. It WAS the best and most stable version of Windows (in Windows history) until Windows 7 came along, but it's been abandoned by Microsoft and now everyone else is following suit.

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Somewhere I have an image of what the screen should look like when showing the various partitions (including the PQService recovery partition). If I can find that within a couple minutes, or find a link to it, I'll post that for you.

I do hope that what I've offered has been of some help.