[JoeGons]

Upgrade Acer Hard Drive and save the Restore Partition “PQSERVICE”.

Upgrade Acer Hard Drive and save the Restore Partition “PQSERVICE”.
(May apply to other Systems)

Problem:
I have an Acer TravelMate 2480 with XP and I wanted to upgrade the hard drive.
The problem is that Acer has its own Recovery system on a hidden partition.
Cloning the C: drive did not work and the System would not boot.
I understand there is something in the MBR or elsewhere that causes the problem.
Could not find a solution anywhere that would allow me to keep the original Recovery Partition.
After many attempts-----
Solution:
I put the old drive in an External Case and connected it to my Desktop.
I used “PartEdit32” to change the hidden drive from Type “12” to “0B” as it was using FAT32.
You can change it to Type 07 (NTFS type) also and either way it will become visible.
PQSERVICE is what Acer named the Partition.
I then cloned the whole drive (all three partitions) using Ghost to the new 160 GIG drive.
DISK to DISK.
How you do this is up to you.
As I mentioned, cloning the Partitions separately could not work.
The original partitions were 4,16 and 16 GIG.
Ghost divided up the new 160 GIG drive into something like 15, 65 and 67 GIG.
So far so good.
The problem was that the first partition ( the recovery partition) only needed 4 GIG.
Enter “EaseUS Partition Manager”.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
Step one was to resize the First partition (PQSERVICE)to 4 GIG.
This left 11 GIG unallocated space between partition 1 and 2.
Now it is critical here.
The next step was to expand the C: partition into the unallocated space adjacent to the first partition.
That put the first and second partitions next to each other with no space between them.
Don’t be tempted to put a partition in the unallocated space. It will not work.
Put the Drive in the Laptop and boot up.
I had 3 Partitions something like 4, 76 and 67 GIG.
Resizing and partitioning the rest of the drive can be done now.
I resized C: to 30GIG, resized D: into the unallocated space next to C:, then resized D to leave unallocated space at the end. Then created the new Partitions.
Somehow the first partition was reset to Type 12 after booting and you only saw C: and D:.
I now have:
PQSERVICE 4 GIG (No Letter)
Acer C: 30 GIG
Acerdata D: 60GIG
Page File Temp F: 5 GIG
Programs G: 15 GIG
Documents H: 35 GIG

I have found that using a DOS boot disk (CD or floppy) with Ghost causes some problems with the USB external Drive. The Freebee cloning tools will not divide up the new Drive in the same way.
You need to use a better Cloning program.
I prefer using the Desktop with both Laptop drives in External Cases (USB) or a Bart CD or Ultimate Boot CD with Ghost 8 and the new Drive in the Laptop and the old Drive in an External Case.
It can be done with the Drives in either location.
Of course you must boot from the CD with the USB connected or the System will not see the External Drive.

Joe

 

[bazsutto]

Re: Upgrade Acer Hard Drive and save the Restore Partition “PQSERVICE”.

Thanks Joe,
Found your information useful while trying to upgrade a hard drive for a client on an Acer 3000 Laptop.
However, I did manage to figure out a simpler solution for the problem and taught it would be a help to people to add it here.
Firstly you will need the following. Ghosting software...I used Norton Ghost. Partedit32, and a hard drive case for connecting your new laptop drive while ghosting the software.
1) Connect up your new hard drive tru your case and connect it to your
laptop USB.
2) Right click "My Computer" and select Manage
3) From the computer management application, select "Disk Management".
4) Here you will notice a drive called PQSERVICE on Disk 0.
Also, your new disc should be here under Disk 1.
5) Next you need to create a partition on the new drive of equal value to
PQSERVICE(in my case the drive size was 2.93GB, so I created a 3GB
partition) but note the following,
A) Format is FAT32
B) Do not assign a drive letter
C) Also call it PQSERVICE
6) Next, You want to create a FAT 32 Bootable partition on the new drive.
Size is not important here, but just make sure you leave enough to put
operating system on. Again, do not assign a drive letter.
You can leave the remainder of the new disk unformatted for now.
7) Using Ghost (Norton Ghost 15 in my case), you want to copy a disk
image/hard drive. Make sure you check the "show hidden drives" option.
You should now see the 2 PQSERVICE and your new bootable partitions.
Select the PQSERVICE partition, ensuring it is the one from disk 0. Now
copy it to your new PQSERVICE partition, but make sure you also copy
over the MBR.
8) Once the copy is complete, you can check your MBR by using Partedit32. I
altered any difference in the two.
9A) Fresh install.
Swap out old drive from laptop and put in new hard drive. Ensure 2D2 is
selected in bios and select ALT + F10 to run the recovery at start-up (once
you see the Acer screen, repeatedly press Alt + F10) and follow onscreen
instructions.
9B) Restoring C:
Again follow steps 7 & 8 but for the C: drive instead. Swap out old drive
with new. Also if you have more partitions on old drive, follow the above
steps to creating another partition for.
10) Now you have complete the transfer and go back into Manage to allocate
the remainder of your disc space however you require.


Apologies for bringing up an old post, but just taught it might save some people a bit of time.

Barry