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Trying to factory reset my Helios 700 using recovery USB from Acer, but USB will not boot.

As the title says, i want to factory reset my Helios 700. I have a recovery USB from Acer, but when i try to boot from the USB i either get the error message "Security Boot Fail", or after then disabling secure boot and selecting the USB as the boot device i then get just a black screen and nothing happens no matter how long i wait.

As i said this recovery USB (32GB) is from Acer and seems to contain a lot of data (approx 16GB of it). There is a sticker on the back of the USB containing 1 short number (8 digits), a long number (22 numbers/characters) and under that W10HML64 / which i am guessing is identifying the OS that is on there.

On the drive there are the following files/folders:

Boot

data

EFI

sources

$NAPPHDD_V3.00.3017_amd64_RS4RTM.....

AcerUSBRecovery.tag

bootmgr

bootmgr.efi

NappDeploySetting.xml

USBStickInfo.txt

If anyone can help that would be great.

Thanks in advanced

Accepted answers

All comments

xapim

Gr3yWolf usually its from 8 to 10gb depending on the os stock version that why i recommend a good 16gb usb drive like a cruzer force for ex also you said you got the recovery drive directly from acer its weird because acer only sells recovery drives in the US/CA only no other countries have that option and they do not ship internationally and in the UK they arent even available for sale at all i tried many times to get one for mine they have refused so i really doubt they will even get u any solution for ex my win10 1809 stock recovery drive for my spin 5 its 9.40gb and you only have 2 folders in any recovery drive heres what you should have in any recovery drive created under windows 10 either way good luck

Gr3yWolf

Thanks for that. Do you happen to know what the file/folder structure should look like? Just so i can compare it with mine to make sure i have everything that is needed and also make sure i dont have what i shouldnt.

Commodore_1995#

Can you send some screenshots of the files that appear on the usb stick (erecovery)?

Gr3yWolf

The USB came with the laptop when i got it:

Here some screenshots, if you need any more let me know:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/pd/0bw4sryz4ti1.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/h0/8h128g699wii.jpg

xapim

Gr3yWolf said:

Thanks for that. Do you happen to know what the file/folder structure should look like? Just so i can compare it with mine to make sure i have everything that is needed and also make sure i dont have what i shouldnt.

Gr3yWolf your file structure will never be the same as one created via windows recovery drive your drive was supposedly created by acer themselves and the version of the erecovery might even be incompatible with your model or not even for the correct model as i stated above they only supply erecovery drives in the US/CA for US/CA models only they do not supply it in any other country care to share how and where you got it as this is really weird as i said i know in fact and for sure as i spoke with acer top staff myself and they do not supply it anywhere else i tried it myself they manage however to send my 5 recovery dvds thats i never tried but they are supposed to recover everything to stock if used in the proper order (its a bit more complicated than that) and i need to use a external usb dvd drive of course

That erecovery usb drive seems to had been created via the really old discontinued acer erecovery management that i have on my aspires 5740G and 7745G to create win7 recovery discs as i remember that exact UI when i created some about 12 years ago not really sure but thats what it seems to me its just weird as i have somewhere the recovery dvds with the same UI you can try to extract/mount your windows.wim image in a virtual drive to check whats on it including the version

Gr3yWolf

As i said i got the USB recovery drive with the laptop, although not in the box but a seperate parcel.

I have checked the files on the drive, and also the .wim files containing windows, and there is mention of this specific laptop model in the files (PH717-71). Unfortunately i do not know how the recovery usb was created.

I have since just done a clean install of windows 10 via the windows creation tool (or whatever its called). Although now there are things missing from predator sense such as CPU Overclocking, whereas before both GPU and CPU overclocking options where available - so i suspect that only the Acer specific version of windows 10 will bring it back - which is why i wanted to recover from the USB, but alas it will not work for whatever reason. As i said, i have contacted Acer support to see what if anything they can do about it, though im not hopeful.

engr146

I unplugged my 2nd internal HD and my system booted off internal ssd drive C:\,when I had an issue booting

Gr3yWolf

Thanks for the suggestion engr146, but this isnt the issue im having. The issue is getting the USB recovery drive to boot.

Gr3yWolf

Ok, so after much tinkering around and trying different things, i decided to clone drive D (the drive that got wiped) onto an external HDD, i then put the drive pack into the laptop and attempted recovery again using the USB recovery from Acer - and now with that drive back in, it works first time, i can boot into Acer recovery and the whole process completes with zero errors. Really strange. Only thing is the recovery process will ONLY complete on drive D, but i need it to complete on drive C (the two SSDs in raid 0). If i try to do the recovery with only the 2 SSDs (drive C) then recovery always fails, never gets passed the verification process without throwing up multiple errors... im puzzled.

So the process completes on drive D and copies over approx 16gb of data:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/j1/o19x9id9d0t2.jpg

The only problem is that when the computer attemps to boot from drive D, it boots into recovery again, and the recovery process begins over again - but i have to have the recovery USB connected else i will give an error saying that the USB drive containing the file NAPPDeploySetting.xml could not be found. So i have to insert the recovery USB again to continue - only when i do it just installs the whole thing over to drive D again - and this happens over and over again.

If i could just get the recovery to properly comlete and install factory OS and settings to drive D, then i could just then clone D over to C - but it wont complete, just loops recovery.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Gr3yWolf

I was just looking through the NAPP log and think i may have found the problem, it seems that during the part of the recovery process that detects the drives in the computer, it doesnt seem to detect the SSDs, only detecting the HDD - which would explain why the recovery fails with only the SSDs, and also would explain why even with the HDD installed it still wont recover to drive C - as it doesnt detect it, though i dont know why it doesnt detect it... strange.

Another odd thing i noticed is that there is mention of Winodws 8 recovery environment - though elsewhere the Windows version is '10', not sure what to make of it.

This is an excerpt from the log file (which i have attached):

2020-08-25 16:36:15.540    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: 2020/08/25 16:36:15.5401 : InternalDiskCount is 1
2020-08-25 16:36:15.540    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: 2020/08/25 16:36:15.5401 : Getting disk0 information...
2020-08-25 16:36:15.665    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] pushd "X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\nonrotatingmedia\AMD64
2020-08-25 16:36:15.665    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] nonrotatingmedia.exe -d \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -nsm 0
2020-08-25 16:36:15.665    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] popd
2020-08-25 16:36:15.946    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10240]
2020-08-25 16:36:15.962    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\>pushd "X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\nonrotatingmedia\AMD64
2020-08-25 16:36:15.962    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\nonrotatingmedia\amd64>nonrotatingmedia.exe -d \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -nsm 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Machine: Build=9600.00
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     Platform=AMD64
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     OS=Windows (TM) 8 Preinstallation Environment
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     ServicePack=""
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     Version=6.3
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     BuildLab="th1"
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     BuildDate=150709-1700
2020-08-25 16:36:16.328    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     Language=English (US) (REDMOND)
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     Config=n/a
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Start: Required Arguments Check, TUID=
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] End: Pass, Required Arguments Check, TUID=, Repro=nonrotatingmedia.exe -d \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -nsm 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Start: Rotational Rate Test, TUID=
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Device in test: '\\.\PhysicalDrive0'
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Bus type is: RAID
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Warn: Bus type is not ATA, SATA, SAS, or NVMe, skip the test.
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output]     File=testsrc\driverstest\storage\wdk\nonrotationalmedia\nrmtest.cpp, Line=57
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] End: Skipped, Rotational Rate Test, TUID=, Repro=nonrotatingmedia.exe -d \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -nsm 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Summary: Total=2, Passed=1, Failed=0, Blocked=0, Warned=0, Skipped=1
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\nonrotatingmedia\amd64>popd
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\>exit
2020-08-25 16:36:16.343    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [ExitCode] 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.359    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] pushd "X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\SSD_precheck\AMD64
2020-08-25 16:36:16.359    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] SsdPrecheckTool.exe 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.359    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Command] popd
2020-08-25 16:36:16.389    [0007]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10240]
2020-08-25 16:36:16.389    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\>pushd "X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\SSD_precheck\AMD64
2020-08-25 16:36:16.389    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\SSD_precheck\amd64>SsdPrecheckTool.exe 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Physical Drive 0: (SATA) ST1000LM049-2GH172
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Physical Drive 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] ---------------------------------------
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Type: SATA
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Model Name: ST1000LM049-2GH172
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Serial Number: ZGS0X4WG
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] Media Rotation Rate: 7200 RPM
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\NAPPHDD\Tools\DiskConfigDetection\SSD_precheck\amd64>popd
2020-08-25 16:36:16.404    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [Output] X:\>exit
2020-08-25 16:36:16.420    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: [ExitCode] 0
2020-08-25 16:36:16.436    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: 2020/08/25 16:36:16.4361 : Checking internal disk count
2020-08-25 16:36:16.436    [0005]    <Trace>    [CommandLine.OutputDataHandler()]        Output: 2020/08/25 16:36:16.4361 : Only one internal disk0, OsDiskIndex is 0 and PbrDiskIndex is 0

Any ideas anyone?

NAPPlogfile.txt

Commodore_1995#

Maybe there is a problem with the usb stick. Does the same problem occur when copying files to another usb stick?

Gr3yWolf

Thanks for the reply.

Yes i have tried to copy the files to another USB and get the same thing unfortunately, but i will give it another go and get back to you - though from past experience i doubt it being successful. What i dont understand is why after completing the recovery process does drive D boot back into recovery and begin the process over again...

Commodore_1995#

This is because you are not disconnecting the usb stick when you restart your computer. That's why the procedure starts again.

Gr3yWolf

I am actually diconnecting the USB stick, as promted to do so at the end of the initial recovery process, then with the USB disconnected i boot into drive D and Acer recovery loads again. When i click continue the varifying process begins and then fails with the error saying that the USB drive containing the file NAPPDeploySetting.xml could not be found, and then after clicking OK the system reboots. If i boot into drive D without the USB connected, it boots into recovery, i then have to insert the USB else i will get the error saying the XML file couldnt be found on the USB, the varifying process then completes and the whole recovery begins again. It just loops like this over and over, i am not sure what is supposed to happen when booting to drive D after recovery - i assume it is supposed to boot into the now 'recovered' Windows OS.

Commodore_1995#

Does the same problem occur when reinstalling windows, using a microsoft iso?

Gr3yWolf

As mentioned previously, i actually did a fresh install of Windows 10 after using the Media Creation Tool on a different USB and had no issues at all - although now some features within for example the Predator Sense software are missing, which is why i want to recover using the Acer USB. Its just using the Acer Recovery USB that gives me issues - i can get the recovery process to complete, but only on drive D (not C like i need it to), but as stated, even then drive D will not boot into windows and instead begins the Acer Recovery process again (without the USB inserted).