Vista Repair

MC_G

Hi, A friend's Acer Aspire 7720g will not start up properly and he's asked me to take a look at it. He has no recovery media although there is a recovery partition. He hasn't backed anything up so I'm leery about using the alt-f10 combo to enter the recovery stage fearing a clean install. Also, He's Italian bought the computer in Ireland with home premium eng and then did an upgrade to ultimate to access the italian language options. If I enter the Anytime Upgrade disk will this allow for the vista start-up repair, or will it know that it's ultimate and not run.

Worst case scenario, I use the recovery partition, he loses some data and i reinstall ultimate from the anytime upgrade disk so he gets the italian option back, anyone think of a workaround or that the upgrade disk will allow a repair to ultimate?

Last question, I promise... If I use a knoppix live cd will I be able to pull any pics, music, etc off of the NTFS volume?

Thanks for any help/suggestions/replies

Sherifu

MC_G wrote: »

Hi, A friend's Acer Aspire 7720g will not start up properly and he's asked me to take a look at it. He has no recovery media although there is a recovery partition. He hasn't backed anything up so I'm leery about using the alt-f10 combo to enter the recovery stage fearing a clean install. Also, He's Italian bought the computer in Ireland with home premium eng and then did an upgrade to ultimate to access the italian language options. If I enter the Anytime Upgrade disk will this allow for the vista start-up repair, or will it know that it's ultimate and not run.

Not sure, my feeling is it should. No harm to stick it in and boot off it. The first screen should have a link to the repair options. Also have you tried booting and pressing F8, it's possible you can access repair from that.

MC_G wrote: »

Worst case scenario, I use the recovery partition, he loses some data and i reinstall ultimate from the anytime upgrade disk so he gets the italian option back, anyone think of a workaround or that the upgrade disk will allow a repair to ultimate?

Try the repair from the disk. Need more info about why it doesn't start up. Errors?

MC_G wrote: »

Last question, I promise... If I use a knoppix live cd will I be able to pull any pics, music, etc off of the NTFS volume?

Thanks for any help/suggestions/replies

Yes.

MC_G

It starts up as normal until after the password is entered, the desktop appears properly and the time appears in the bottom right. After that none of the icons in the task bar (wireless network, av, and whatever other programs he has set to run) load/appear. The little circle by the pointer spins for a bit like the timer in xp, then stops. Nothing responds after that, the pointer will move but if you try to start a program or right click on the desktop the little circle spins into eternity.

After a hard reboot, it states windows didn't shut down properly etc, etc. First I tried last know good config with the same result, then I tried safe mode, the log on screen appeared but wouldn't allow a log in. Hard reboot to regular log in screen then did a proper shut down, same result.

Tapping f8 gave limited options, anything i hadn't tried required media. Searched about the acer recovery partition, but some people were saying it does a clean install without being able to cancel, and since I don't really want vista home premium with data loss and then an ultimate upgrade, I thought I'd ask the experts around these parts.

Thanks for the quick response Sherifu

Sherifu

Does it do the same for safe mode? Yes, it'll do a clean install from the image in the rec partition.

MC_G

I can't even enter the password on safe mode, it hangs at the user log-on screen so I never even get to the desktop. I'm not sure of this myself, but in another forum people were complaining of having to burn a recovery dvd from the partition to even use the alt f10 function or pay 50 euro for media. Needless to say, my friend I'm sure didnt do that, he uses skype, browses, and burns mix cd's with this machine! I think my best bet will be to use a live cd and back up whatever I can and then try the anytime upgrade dvd. It's a project I'm not going to start tonight i dont think.

Any ideas on using the to-ram on a live cd to acess the burner to maybe create the recovery dvd just in case, or should i just save everything to external hd/usb key?

Edit: 21 pages of acer recovery horror stories spanning xp/vista
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=11476&page=19

Sherifu

Once the partition is there you shouldn't need any media but it doesn't always work like that There should be a way to burn the recovery image alright, i'm sure i've read guides on it.

MC_G

I explained the doesnt always work like that bit to him! My inexperience in doing things like this with vista makes me want to have all my i's dotted and t's crossed before I start. Thanks for the help Sherifu, I'll check back for any more suggestions, and post what I tried and how it worked for anyone else with this problem.

Funny thing is I've never had to do an involuntary reinstall/repair when ive had the proper os/recovery media, and now that they've stopped shipping with it.....