Acer Recovery problem

[Syb]

Hiya,
Ok got an acer aspire model SA80, running XP home, its infected with I dont know how many trojans and virus's and lots of downloaded malware which the owner thought would clean it, they obviously have just made it worse.

Since system restore fails no matter how far I go back and there is nothing important on the drive we tried the acer recovery cd's (5 in the set) to return the machine to factory.

When I insert Disc 1 it tells me loading RAMDISK image, I then choose english language and restore factory default system.

It then asks for Disc 2, after inserting the disc I get device does not exist, I click ok to acknowledge the message and a small window pops up saying Cannot find preload.tag for SetBootIni, I click OK to acknowledge the message and then it asks for Disc 1 again and does the same thing all over again.

I thought at first Disk 2 was faulty so rang Acer support, the tech there told me that he thought there was a problem with the HD partition and that it would have to go back to acer to be fixed. its out of warranty so that would mean a charge. I asked him why couldnt I just reformat and repartition the drive, he said that if i did that I would have to buy a new copy of XP to be able to install XP again....

.

Because Acer's recovery disks do not take into a/c that a hard drive can fail, or that you may want to format and do a clean install and fail to provide the media for XP does not mean i can not use the same CD key to re-install XP onto that machine.

I gather from that conversation that there is a hidden partition on the drive that has XP on it, and that is probably what the disk is looking for

But before I do any of that I was wondering if anyone had experience with this problem and knew of a way to fix it, as I said I havent done anything to the drive yet and have other machines that I can connect it to as a slave and run disk repair programs to possibly make the hidden partition accessable again, but dont want to mess with the drive until i know what the ramifications will be.

rgds
Syb

[sosaman]

do you still have your COA label on your comp? if you do, that is your os key (if you haven't reinstalled the os, and/or changed it).

you can use something like this (link below) to get the key.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Magical_Je...der_d2612.html

if it were me, i'd get what i want off of there, i'd get my key, format the h/d, and reload the os. if your disks won't work, then i'd borrow an oem disk from somebody that has "xp home", and insert your key from above. i don't understand why your would have to buy another copy of xp? g/l, sos

[moosehead128]

I have similar problems. I do have an new XP disk, how can i delete all data including windows on hard drive to ensure virus is gone before re-installing? I ve tried several online programs which require writting to cd, but this doesnt work due to virus?

Please help!!

[sosaman]

Originally Posted by moosehead128

I have similar problems. I do have an new XP disk, how can i delete all data including windows on hard drive to ensure virus is gone before re-installing? I ve tried several online programs which require writting to cd, but this doesnt work due to virus? Please help!!

moosehead, you should really start your own thread. but, here goes. do you have access to another comp that you can use the cd drive? do you have everything off of there that you want? or don't care about it? if you salvage stuff from your comp (before you reinstall your os), make sure you scan the items before you put them back onto your comp, as they could be infected. also, make sure you have your key!!

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Magical_Je...der_d2612.html <-- Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/h...displaylang=en <-- How To Tell - What is a Certificate of Authenticity (COA)?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boo...uke_d4596.html <-- Darik's Boot and Nuke 2007-04-29 Beta

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=25831 <-- Formatting Your PC

some things you might want to consider (syb also). if you have a brand name comp (ie, dell, compaq, etc.), you might want to hit their site and get any drivers that you think you will need (ie, sound, video, etc). if the comp you are on (the one you want to fix) is the only comp available, you might not be able to access the internet to get certain drivers. it's always handy to have another comp available to get drivers if needed. anyway, g/l peeps - sos