Restoring Aspire 6930 to factory default

[rennyg]

Hold onto your chairs & wrap a leg around the table. You are going to love this one! ALT + F10 doesn't work. I may have broken the key board in frustration. Neither ACER (laptop out of warranty) nor Microsoft (can't make out last 2 characters of product key label) were much help Operating system: Was apparently a bootleg copy of win7 x64 ultimate past the 30 day limit (Of course). Supposed to be win vista home premium x64. How much RAM? Honestly don't remember, too frustrated with the other issues. Same for the cpu. No back up / restore disks were made despite my repeated warnings. Here's the kicker. One of my cats decided to "hose down" the laptop when I left it on the table one evening. Help please!

[GZ]

Hello rennyg and welcome to TSF,

Unfortunately, when Windows 7 was installed, the recovery partition may have been deleted. Even if it hasn't the boot code required to allow access via Alt+F10 was overwritted with Windows 7 defaults.

Can you verify the Acer recovery partition is still present on the HDD?

If not, you can purchase recovery media for your computer from Acer.
Acer Store: Recovery Media Purchase Program

About the cats.... I suggest you IMMEDIATELY take the computer apart and clean all affected components with 90% isopropyl alcohol and let them dry completely. The chemicals in feline urine will wreak havok on the electrical components in the system.

[rennyg]

<P>Apparently only the C: partition was affected. The D:\PQService &amp; X: partitions are still there. There may be other hidden partitions. Oh by the way, I've been using the usb keyboard from my desktop.</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>According to Acer tech support, after 3 years recovery media is no longer manufactored for that computer model.&nbsp; This laptop is more than 3 years old, of course.&nbsp; Tried to order recovery media from Acer &amp; ebay with no luck.</P>

[GZ]

You can try to access the recovery partition by using GParted live CD to set the partition to boot. There is no guarantee it will work, though. I have had mixed success with it in the past.

[rennyg]

Never heard of that one. Give a me a few days to play with it. I'll get back to you Monday or Tuesday. Have a good weekend.

[rennyg]

Sorry, been busy past few days beating my head against wall. Last suggestion did not work (Gparted live). Friend gave me a set of eRecovery disks. Thought I was in heaven till I found the disks were for Win 7, not Win Vista x64. Reformatting C: drive. Back at drawing board. Thank for your help thus far.

[GZ]

Unfortunately the only option you are left with at this point is to nab a Vista OEM disc and use the numbers from your C.O.A. to activate it, or purchase a retail copy of 7 (which I highly recommend)

[rennyg]

Sorry. got distracted for awhile. tried mbrwrwin.exe install mbr.bin from command prompt. didn't work. please don't ask me how I got to the command prompt as I don't remember. So far, every other website has assumed (I hate that word) that the individual trying to fix this very problem has the install disk. I do have an install disk, it's just locked away on that blasted hidden partition.

[GZ]

I am sorry... by "nab a Vista install disc" I meant to procure one. I am at a loss, I have only had spotty success accessing the restore partition. The most luck I have had is with HP.

[rennyg]

SOLVED . Sorry for the delay, had a family emergency come up.
Found the following at www.fixya.com:

On a nonfunctional Windows system.

Download the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) run it.

Choose in the menu;
$3CP> </P>File System Tools

Boot Managers

I used GAG (what a name for a program)

Add different OS for the first partition. Please note, the partitions are not shown by letters but numbers. Just pick the first one (in*my case).

Install the boot loader, remove the CD and reboot.

Watch eRecovery start the recovery process.

By the way, I did break the keyboard. In several places, oh well.

Backup your data .

Thank you for your time and patience one and all, especially you, Mr. Gavinzach.

[rennyg]

By the way, anybody know where I can pick up some of those little black connector caps for the keyboard. It seems I broke this one on the aspire 6930 .