How do I restore Acer eRecovery to its initial state, asking to make backups

[micky]

I hope you know something about Acer or something generic that can
help me.

How do I restore Acer eRecovery to its initial state, where it asked
the user to make Back-up DVDs?**

My friend and I both have Acer Aspire One netbooks, his A150 or maybe
D150 bought reconditioned and about 4 years old, my D250 bought used
a month ago and about 2 years old.

Both have some vesrion of Acer eRecovery Management. I want to back
up all his files like eRecovery intends.

Mine used to ask me to make Back-up DVD's*** every time I started the
computer (until I unchecked an entry^^ in MSCONFIG) and the same
screen asks if I want to Restore. ^^But his msconfig doesn't have
that entry. And I can bring up a similar screen on his, but it
only asks if I want to restore, nothing about Backup.


His otoh,doesn't ask anything at startup (though maybe it did when he
first got it) but the Help file for eRecovery says that it is
possible to check a box on that litle screen regarding backups that
says "Don't ask me this again?" I think someone did that. I want
to uncheck it!

When I use Windows Exploerer to click on a file named something like
AcerErecoveryUI.exe, I get a small screen similar to the one on my
computer, asking if I want to restore, but not asking me if I want to
back up (I'm afraid to click on the other .exe files, or I did and
they didn't do anything.) .

How do I get it to ask me to Back-up, so I can back him up? I looked
through the registry and found a couple one character Words called
Burndef_Reminder and eRecovery_Enable. that are set fo 1 or 0. I'm
guessing that if one were changed, it would request the backups. ( I
haven't yet compared those values in my computer.)

Sorry for flaws in this post. I'm short of time because my friend
plans to leave on trip in 4 days.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.


extraneeous info.
** (Two sets of CDs or DVDs, ,one called a factory default disk and
the other a drivers and applications disc. With the original hard
drive, it also has a separate process to get back to the way the
computer was shipped, although only in one's first choice language.)

**and I will make backups for myself soon after I install my
standard suite of programs that I use.

 

[micky]

What did Acer indicate when you cantected them ?

I didn't contact them. He only bought a reconditioned item, and it's
been four years on that. I figured they'd say, Ask on our Forum.

Which I plan to do. Last night I read all the related old questions
and answers on their forum and one or two others. Theirs didn't seem
to have employees answering the questions, just regular folks. ,
And web forums are so inconvenient to use, in so many ways, I was
going to ask on them when I got my morning's work done.

Do you think I'm too pessimistic about what they would do for him?

 

[Paul]

I hope you know something about Acer or something generic that can
help me.

How do I restore Acer eRecovery to its initial state, where it asked
the user to make Back-up DVDs?**

My friend and I both have Acer Aspire One netbooks, his A150 or maybe
D150 bought reconditioned and about 4 years old, my D250 bought used
a month ago and about 2 years old.

Both have some vesrion of Acer eRecovery Management. I want to back
up all his files like eRecovery intends.

Mine used to ask me to make Back-up DVD's*** every time I started the
computer (until I unchecked an entry^^ in MSCONFIG) and the same
screen asks if I want to Restore. ^^But his msconfig doesn't have
that entry. And I can bring up a similar screen on his, but it
only asks if I want to restore, nothing about Backup.


His otoh,doesn't ask anything at startup (though maybe it did when he
first got it) but the Help file for eRecovery says that it is
possible to check a box on that litle screen regarding backups that
says "Don't ask me this again?" I think someone did that. I want
to uncheck it!

When I use Windows Exploerer to click on a file named something like
AcerErecoveryUI.exe, I get a small screen similar to the one on my
computer, asking if I want to restore, but not asking me if I want to
back up (I'm afraid to click on the other .exe files, or I did and
they didn't do anything.) .

How do I get it to ask me to Back-up, so I can back him up? I looked
through the registry and found a couple one character Words called
Burndef_Reminder and eRecovery_Enable. that are set fo 1 or 0. I'm
guessing that if one were changed, it would request the backups. ( I
haven't yet compared those values in my computer.)

Sorry for flaws in this post. I'm short of time because my friend
plans to leave on trip in 4 days.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.


extraneeous info.
** (Two sets of CDs or DVDs, ,one called a factory default disk and
the other a drivers and applications disc. With the original hard
drive, it also has a separate process to get back to the way the
computer was shipped, although only in one's first choice language.)

**and I will make backups for myself soon after I install my
standard suite of programs that I use.

The manual makes no mention of how you can reverse it.

http://static.acer.com/up/Resource/Acer/Docs/PH/20110221/recovery.pdf

On my Acer laptop, there is a program "Recovery Management.exe" and
if I run that, I'm offered the option to create a "factory CD". Now,
I've already created factory DVDs when I got the laptop, so I don't
understand why it doesn't point out that they've already been burned.
Normally, that kind of software only allows one copy of DVDs to
be made (exactly why though, doesn't make sense to me, as the
Windows software should be protected by SLIC).

Have a look through the eRecovery program files folder, and see
what apps hide in there. Program Files/Acer/Acer eRecovery Management.

I tried running Procmon, and didn't catch the Recovery Management program
checking with any RegQueryKey operations. It's too bad there wasn't
an option in Procmon to just snag all registry ops for analysis.
It would take a few minutes to manually add those one at a time to
Procmon (from sysinternals.com).

Paul

 

[Moe DeLoughan]

I hope you know something about Acer or something generic that can
help me.

How do I restore Acer eRecovery to its initial state, where it asked
the user to make Back-up DVDs?**

I dunno about Acer's policy with regards to making multiple copies of
backup discs, but HP prohibits it. Their pcs are enabled to create one
set and one set only. You want more, you have to go to the company and
buy them.

 

[dg1261]

HP prohibits it. Their pcs are enabled to create one set and one
set only. You want more, you have to go to the company and buy them.

That's not exactly true. Specifically, it's HP's recovery disc creator app
that's crippled, not the PC itself. Once it creates a DVD set, it probably
sets a flag in the registry or might even delete the app so it can't be
used again. However, IME if/when you do a factory restore, even from the
on-disk recovery partition, you are once again offered the chance to create
a set of recovery DVDs. Also, you can always copy the DVDs, so once you've
created the first set, if you want more you can simply copy the discs. It
would not surprise me if an Acer worked similarly.

The OEMs' "one-chance-only" rationale has never made sense to me. I
understand they'd like to keep people from making multiple copies and
passing them out to friends, but if you're the type of person to do that
there's nothing preventing you from making one set and duplicating it as
many times as you want.

 

[Ken Springer]

I dunno about Acer's policy with regards to making multiple copies of
backup discs, but HP prohibits it. Their pcs are enabled to create one
set and one set only. You want more, you have to go to the company and
buy them.

Not necessarily for HP. I was recently given an HP desktop, I don't
remember the model, with Win 7 to be fixed and given to a local social
agency.

To get it to even boot, I had to purchase the official HP recovery
disks. When I installed the OS using those disks, to my surprise the
computer asked if I wanted to make a set of disks on the first bootup.
I did. After that, it didn't ask to do it any more.

But I wanted to test the recovery disks I made, and after installing
everything with them, I was being asked again if I wanted to make a set.
I made another set with no problem.

Using the HP recovery disks created a recovery partition on the hard
drive. This also happened when I used the disks I made. When I
recovered using the recovery partition, I again was asked if I wanted a
set of disks. This time I declined.

Conclusion: The information that you created the disks is stored on the
hard drive of this particular model. Put it back to the way it was when
it first came out of the box and you get asked again if you want to make
the disks.

As you can see from my sig, I use a Mac normally. And I wondered, what
if? I took both the HP Recovery disks, and the disks I made, and burned
images of those sets using OS X's Disk Utility. Then I used those
images and burned new disks. All worked perfectly.

I can't imagine there isn't a 3rd party burning program that won't do
the same thing as Disk Utility.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.2
Firefox 19.0
Thunderbird 17.0.3
LibreOffice 3.6.5.2

 

[micky]

I dunno about Acer's policy with regards to making multiple copies of
backup discs, but HP prohibits it. Their pcs are enabled to create one
set and one set only. You want more, you have to go to the company and
buy them.

Well, that might be what's going on.

I looked in the regiistry for Dwords that were different, but I didn't
even find Dwords of the same name. I have version 4 and he must have
3 point something. Also in the folders on the computers, folder
names are different and their arrangement is different,

I'm taking my friend to the airport Monday, but he said he's coming
back tonight to get the computer (I guess in case I can't do Monday.)
.. I can only spend an hour or two more on it, but there's no special
reason it will fail in the next two weeks. So when he gets back I'll
try some more. He's a Mac guy too and he only uses this t hing when
he travels, because a lightweight macbook cost so much money.

Thanks Moe, Paul, David, DG, and Ken.

 

[micky]

I hope you know something about Acer or something generic that can
help me.

How do I restore Acer eRecovery to its initial state, where it asked
the user to make Back-up DVDs?**

The DVD creation is supposed to make two sets of CDs or DVDs, ,one
called a factory default disk andt he other a drivers and applications
disc.

Does "applications" include things I'm about to install, Real Player,
Agent, Skype, etc.? Does drivers include printer drivers for my
wireless printer?

If so, assuming that for my computer, I can only make these discs
once, should I wait until I've installed the software I'm sure to
install t he first month?

That seems risky, but Acer's the one which won't let me make these
discs more than once.


BTW, it also has a hidden partition and alt-F10 to take it back to the
way it was from the factory.

 

[Moe DeLoughan]

That's not exactly true. Specifically, it's HP's recovery disc creator app
that's crippled, not the PC itself. Once it creates a DVD set, it probably
sets a flag in the registry or might even delete the app so it can't be
used again. However, IME if/when you do a factory restore, even from the
on-disk recovery partition, you are once again offered the chance to create
a set of recovery DVDs.

I discovered this with my brother's HP desktop last weekend. He
couldn't find his restore discs, and attempting to make a new set
resulted in the 'sorry, you are only allowed to create one set of
discs' message. So we performed a full factory restore from the
partition, figuring that would enable us to create a new set of discs.
Nope. Immediately after completing the factory restore, we attempted
to create recovery discs and once again got the 'sorry, you are only
allowed to create one set of discs' message.

HP's support site had indicated that, but I couldn't believe it until
we tried it ourselves.

 

[dg1261]

we performed a full factory restore from the
partition, figuring that would enable us to create a new set of discs.
Nope. Immediately after completing the factory restore, we attempted
to create recovery discs and once again got the 'sorry, you are only
allowed to create one set of discs' message.

Really? Wow, that's different. I've worked on many HPs, and my experience
has always been the same as Ken's--factory restoring from either the HP
Recovery partition or the Recovery DVDs yields a new chance to create
recovery media.

How old is your brother's desktop, and what OS? I'm wondering if this is a
recent change by HP.