Aspire One Recovery
Posted by 
Michael Walsh) on Sep 12 2008 | Tagged as: Acer
In the first of the “How to…” series of videos, I look at how to set up a Recovery Flash Drive from the Aspire One’s Recovery DVD and then how to do the actual recovery.
I need to make it clear that this video applies to the Linux version of the Aspire One. The XP version is an entirely different ballgame and as many of you have pointed out, does not contain a recovery disk as there is a form of eRecovery already installed on the machine.
Oh and before any of you comment, no I don’t have the fastest-booting Acers on the planet - the boot up/down times have been edited to fit into the video.
Hope it helps.
| 4.3 (7 people) |
on 27 Sep 2008 at 12:18 am 1
VittyO (Check me out!) said …
Hmmm… Mine did not come with a Recovery DVD. Instead it had a documentation addendum that said to use Acer eRecovery (which is on the hard driver). A lot of good that does if the hard drive dies.
on 27 Sep 2008 at 7:48 am 2
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
yes, yours should be the HDD version, am I correct? cause the SSD is too small and to waste more space for the recovery partition
on 27 Sep 2008 at 3:11 pm 3
VittyO (Check me out!) said …
Yes, it is the HDD 120GB version. What do I do if the hard drive fails? The only recovery is on the hard drive.
on 28 Sep 2008 at 6:42 am 4
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
I recall that he Acer eRecovery program can let you create your own full recovery DVD’s for factory version too, give that a shot. I don’t like using recovery, i use clean install
on 28 Sep 2008 at 10:43 pm 5
VittyO (Check me out!) said …
It does not let you create recovery DVD’s, flash drives, etc. I guess I’ll need to call them…
on 29 Sep 2008 at 12:57 am 6
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
hum… you should be able to at least make a “backup” dvd or something, if all failes, try the one from windows.
on 30 Sep 2008 at 9:06 pm 7
Jez (Check me out!) said …
Wow. wow. wow.
You saved my sister’s aspire one! haha.
Thank you sooo much. I had no idea how to restore her settings back after messing up a bit with her settings (which resulted to loss of panel bar, system tray, wifi, and others).
Thank you sooo much! Your site gave me all the information I needed. God bless you, acerguy!
on 07 Oct 2008 at 1:54 pm 8
Gvido (Check me out!) said …
Hello!
When I created my bootable USB disk drive, I simply connected my external DVD drive, booted up from the CD and created the USB drive. I didn’t need to use another computer or go into the BIOS. When I booted up from the CD I used the boot menu instead!
Regards
on 08 Oct 2008 at 12:45 am 9
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
yes, it the point of using another computer is for those who DO NOT have a USB DVD ROM at all, there for transfering the files to a USB one thus, you technically have a “USB installer” to use instead of the need of going out and purchase a USB DVD rom.
if you had a USB DVD rom, you wouldn’t need to use the USB Flash drive.
on 22 Oct 2008 at 12:17 am 10
Rick (Check me out!) said …
I bought my One recently. an a150 XP 120Gb. One of the selling points for me was that the blurb said it included backup/recovery software.
The box was sealed when it arrived, but there was no CD/DVD in the contents. The micro-manual that came with it said that eRecovery was pre-installed. It is. But it only recovers - no backup facility. So I can recover if I want to but not if the HDD goes pphut. Another selling point is the pre-installation of XP etc. If the HDD goes bust, so does all that.
I emailed Acer Tech Support who responded very quickly. I was told to reinstall eRecovery from the CD by booting with it in the CD drive. I pointed out that I had an Aspire One which had no CD drive - or CD for that matter (I do have a USB CD/DVD drive though). Another quick response from support said that Aspire One support was only available by phone, and was given a USA number. I didn’t think that would be a good thing since I live in UK.
I tried phoning UK Acer Tech Support. You should have a CD in the box I was told. No, I said - not there - says preloaded in manual. Ah says he then I need to phone a different number because it is a software issue, not hardware. The number was given - a prime call number at 50p/minute. They could however supply a CD for £50.
Throwing caution to the wind and hanging the expense, I called the software support. CD in the box I was told. No, I said - not there - says preloaded in manual (familiar?). Well it should be he says. If it’s not then it is the fault of the distributor. He tells me to contact my reseller to get them to get the CD from the distributor.
Having a spot of bother with Aspire One delivery from my reseller, I decided I didn’t really want to go down that route as I don’t hold out much luck there.
So, that is where I am at. Before I do any serious work on my One I want to back it up (system-wise) just in case, and since I have paid for the XP etc in the package price.
Does anyone actually have a CD for the a150 XP 120Gb? Where can I get a copy without having to fork out another fifty quid?
I think Acer machines are great, but this lack of support concerns me - almost as much as why the CD was not included - If I was cynical I would say it seems like a ploy to get more cash.
on 22 Oct 2008 at 2:48 am 11
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
I think Aspire One 120GB XP edition uses erecovery system instead. press Alt+F10 on startup see if that works
on 22 Oct 2008 at 11:57 pm 12
Rick (Check me out!) said …
Yes it does. But that’s not the point. I want a CD (or flash drive) that contains the system I bought in case the HDD packs up. It probably won’t, but I would feel safer with a backup - then I only have to buy a new HDD and not an entire OS as well. I paid for it - I want it.
On top of that I wanted to do regular backups of my data to flash or DVD via the USB port.
on 23 Oct 2008 at 1:40 am 13
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
I suppose that is true, but companies now are just looking for cheaper ways to get around the price to make a extra backup cd for you
on 25 Oct 2008 at 5:00 pm 14
roaskim (Check me out!) said …
Hi,
Excellent work done in building this video!
I have an aspire one 150 which stopped working. When I boot I get the aspire screen and nothing else.
So I have created the USB key following your very clear explanation.
My problem is that after hitting F12 and entering the boot menu I only have 2 items to choose from: IDE or Network!
I don’t have the possibility to boot from the USB key.
Any idea to save me?
Thanks Joaquin.
on 25 Oct 2008 at 8:56 pm 15
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
try different usb ports, and try pressing the F12 key repeatedly, some usb drives need a few seconds to power up, pressing the F12 key many times repeatedly slows down the flash drive detection allows some time for the USB to initiallize
Cheers
on 25 Oct 2008 at 10:37 pm 16
Rickr (Check me out!) said …
I have an acer one, and I decided to sell it to a friend, so I simply took my kingston drive and went to erecovery. I did this early, when I didnt have much on it other than my usual applications(google earth avg etc). It seems to work fine making a backup. I then restored the drive back to the machine and it brought me back with all of my applications..worked wonderfully.
rr
on 03 Nov 2008 at 5:47 am 17
Junior (Check me out!) said …
Any Body Got A Extensa 5620z(Vista) System Default Recovry Disk?? Any Where I Can DownLoad It For Free From Yall?
on 08 Nov 2008 at 6:15 am 18
Riza (Check me out!) said …
thank youuuuuu
Morris Lee
cause i didn’e see the Alt+F10 command before..
on 09 Nov 2008 at 6:49 pm 19
James Morrison (Check me out!) said …
Hi All,
I am trying to burn a DVD backup on an Acer Aspire 3050. I did a restore to the original factory defaulst which went fine. Now, when I try to do a “Burn Dick” factory backup, the program keeps kicking out my DVDs and CDRs asking me to insert a blank disk. Is there a way for me to access the backup “image” on the d: data drive and try to burn it that way? Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me, Jim
on 10 Nov 2008 at 8:19 am 20
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
yes, there is, if you reall mean “burn disk” instead… anyways, you just have to display hidden folder then you will see a folder right under the D:\ partition. you can then burn those files or put them on a separate usb HDD or however it works out for you.
on 17 Nov 2008 at 5:03 am 21
Kent (Check me out!) said …
Thanks for your information.