creating a restore to factory USB drive

I have an acer aspire one D260 netbook and i am wondering if it is possible to create a Restore to factory USB stick. I am running Windows 7 starter edition and dont have a dvd drive or external HD or an exernal DVD/Cd drive. Also I would like to know (if it is possible) what size stick would be needed. I dwnld the windows DVD/USb tool that allows you create a bootable usb stick and thought I found the backup of the system on the HD called OEM (hidden in the C drive of the netbook ) but the tool is not recognizing it as an ISO. It's path is computer/C/OEM with the OEM as a hidden read only file. Any help would be apprieciated.

 

Hello,
With the Aspire One, if you press Alt+F10 while booting, it should give you the option to restore to factory settings. Is this what you wanted? That hidden OEM partition is accessed from the menu you see when pressing the above keys.

 

no I'm trying to have an emergency full system factory restore backup just in case but as with netbooks there is no dvd/cd to make discs with. I was wondering if there was a way to make one on a flash drive stick and how big the stick needs to be. Acer gives you a proggy to do it on an optical drive but I dont have an external dvd/cd or an external HD. Also I tried using the windows progam that helps you to do what I want but I cant seem to find the iso for windows starter on my netbook. It isnt in a separate partition the hidden OEM folder is hidden on the C drive but when i search though the folder there is no file that the program recognizes as an iso.

 

That hidden partition will not have an iso. It is probably an image that Acer's Erecovery uses to restore the computer to a factory state either from Windows or at boot using Alt+F10." I would recommend that you purchase a external hard drive for image backups because it would be easier to manage your backup images. If you want to backup to a key, you could install something like Todo Backup 1.1 and then do a disk image to the USB key. The size of your key would depend on how much data your hard drive has currently and what you plan to add in the future. But, in order to restore a system partition, you will have to do it with a bootable USB key because you cannot restore a system image from within Windows. In "C:\Program Files\EASEUS Todo Backup 1.1\bin" there is an file called "image.iso". You can create a bootable USB using this iso and a program called UNetbootin. You would probably need another USB key to hold the image you are backing up or restoring from. I am not sure if you could backup an image to the key you are using to boot Todo from thus eliminating a USB key. Make sure you can boot with the key into Todo and it sees your hard drive and USB key or external hard drive with the saved image. Should your system become corrupted, you do not want to find out that the bootable USB key cannot see your image. You may have to change your BIOS setting to boot from USB. Your laptop has more than one USB port, correct?

 

yes there are 3 on the acer netbook. I followed the todo link you gave and it says its a program for backing up an image without the os and apps. I guess I'm not saying this right. I would like to make a backup of the OS and apps asus drivers ect. I care not about my alterations /files. I want to know if it is possible to make a usb that does exactly what would happen if you restore to factory default from the asus program but though a bootable usb in case of very malicious virus or hd failure ect. I would like to be able to boot the comp from the usb and get the netbook to like it was when i recieved it. I realize i could buy and external dvd writer and make the disc/s But is it possible to do this with a usb stick?

 

I can assure you that Todo will backup your operating system and data. It is a complete imaging system. What it will not do is backup individual files. If you do have a virus, you could simply press the Alt+F10 key combination at boot and it would take you to the recovery manager where you would be able to return you to the state at which it was bought. If you did receive a virus, it would not affect the hidden partition. Even if your operating system partition was completely infected, your hidden partition with the OS image would be safe. What it would not do is help you if your hard drive failed. Then, using the usb key with the image created from Todo you could take your computer back to the point of your backup.

From Easeus web site;

 

just for reference a microsoft employee suggests just making a windows7starter backup file from dvd and put it on a usb flash in fat32 format on another computer. I am not sure he knows what he is talking about because I thought I would have to download the usb version myself... I personally am in a bad boat with my netbook tried to do the android 4.0 os switch and it went perfect except I didnt create a digital sd card which allows me to use space on my harddrive so as of right now it only uses about 200 something mb.. which with only a few apps and files completely kills out that memory...If I find the windows 7 starter backup usb file for acer laptops I will gladly repost. Yes I realize that this thread is a little bit old but idk where you went from here. For all I know you couldve just gave up on wanting a backup file... I know that certain virus's can keep you from using the keyboard to do the alt. f10 recovery option. Currently I can't do this because android begins booting up way faster than windows and takes over before being able to reach the recovery option screen.. So I too am in search of the correct file to download onto usb for the acer aspire one windows 7 starter recovery.

 

so all I ended up doing was writing a back up disc but then realized that i had no back up date but could atleast map my way through the computer then and went to a factory reset.... I do not remember how exactly because it was a few trial and errors before success... but I tried a few commands in bios and that did not work for switching back to windows boot first eventually got it all sorted out..... I think by running in non quiet mode and that takes longer because the cpu is going line by line through the boot... anyways it gave me the chance to restore to default....

 

if it turns on and you can access everything you have on it I would just save a back up point on it make a dvd recovery disc file spend the extra 30 dollars for a usb dvd drive and do that if you are not comfortable with that im not sure I can help will have to look into it a little deeper, but if you cant access anything try the Fbutton recovery I think its F8....