I have an Acer Aspire E700 desktop, currently running Vista Home Premium with SP2.
I'm in a pickle. My system files have become corrupt; I have done 3 different attempts to do an in-place upgrade. Nothing seems to fix the problem. I have been working with a Microsoft Tech who has graciously stuck with it trying to help me resolve the problem.
We have come to the conclusion that the hard drive is on the verge of failing.
I bought a new hard drive over Thanksgiving. I don't have the money to buy a new OS, so I thought I could just use the repair CD's that the Tech sent me to reinstall Vista onto the new hard drive. Evidently it's not that cut and dried. It seems that because this is an OEM I lose the connection to the OEM license the minute I change hard drives. I figured ok, I'll just roll it back to original factory setting; make a copy of the OEM starter version, then when I reinstall it to the new drive, I would install that first and the OEM license would be recognized. Nice plan but that didn't work. ALT F10 is supposed to take me to the recovery console. It doesn't do a thing. I've pushed every F key on here and can't get there.
When I contacted Acer support (and this is where a smiley rolling on the floor laughing would come in handy) They said it was out of warranty and they couldn't help. 3 years ago I paid over $900 for this computer and because it's 3 months past their warranty they can't help. They said I could get paid assistance but they couldn't guarantee they could fix the problem. I thanked them (again smiley on floor laughing) for their assistance and told them to shove it.
The Acer eRecovery files are in the computer files, but something has to be wrong with them. I do have a backup of all of my files but they are from 2009, not 2007. However I did find a few (Acer) files on the backup that are not in the computer files now. One is called Acer INC. Inside it is a file listed as eRecovery, in that is a file with D2D?? The actual "eRecovery Folder" is in a separate place. It's with the management tools.
Nobody told me I needed a "original backup" CD, I thought that was what the eRecovery was for. I figured if I needed one it would have come in the box, my old HP came with one. Not Acer, that might have cost $1.00 to make, and heaven forbid we cut the profit margin that much on a $900 machine.
So, is there any way to roll this sucker back and make the stupid CD that I should have made when I bought this thing?? Or, am I truly UP THE CREEK???