restore windows xp on acer aspire one
When i purchased my aspire one i purchased the Windows XP Version. After using it a bit i decided to download the linpus linux and install it on my laptop. I had the restore discs for my laptop so i figured if I got tired of windows XP then i could just bootstrap the discs onto a usb drive (I don't own an external CD/DVD) and reinstall. This weekend I found out how bad that assumption was.
I decided to reinstall windows on my machine because I wanted to continue coding when and if i go on a brief trip. My projects are exclusively for windows as they are usually used at work or given to someone else to solve a problem they are having. I enjoy seeing my code used. This isn't possible with linux. I loved the Linpus distro. It was fast, expandable and uniquely adapted to my little netbook but i couldn't continue my hobby coding on it so it had to go.
Anyways, to the point. I spent all weekend trying to restore this thing with the restore discs. When I was finally able to bootstrap the Restore CD (a Vista based PRE) it just wouldn't offer the restore option and only allowed me to exit. At that point I almost broke down and bought an external DVD/RW drive. Instead I stepped back and looked at the imaging technology used by Acer's eRecovery program... imagex.
Restoring from imagex is a breeze. It is well documented and Acer provides all of the tools you need. get the copy of imagex off of the recovery cd: \PATCH\TOOLS and get your image off of the windows XP CD: \IMAGES *.SWM and you are good to go.
What i did was boot into my acer using ERD Commander from a thumb drive and then opened up the command prompt to build the wim image and then restore that to the built in SSD.
of course i had to fix the master boot record with mbrfix (a sweet replacement utility for the recovery console's fixmbr tool) and then I had to mark the partition as active (using ERD's disc manager). I can honestly say that I have never been so happy restoring windows. Really.
I decided to reinstall windows on my machine because I wanted to continue coding when and if i go on a brief trip. My projects are exclusively for windows as they are usually used at work or given to someone else to solve a problem they are having. I enjoy seeing my code used. This isn't possible with linux. I loved the Linpus distro. It was fast, expandable and uniquely adapted to my little netbook but i couldn't continue my hobby coding on it so it had to go.
Anyways, to the point. I spent all weekend trying to restore this thing with the restore discs. When I was finally able to bootstrap the Restore CD (a Vista based PRE) it just wouldn't offer the restore option and only allowed me to exit. At that point I almost broke down and bought an external DVD/RW drive. Instead I stepped back and looked at the imaging technology used by Acer's eRecovery program... imagex.
Restoring from imagex is a breeze. It is well documented and Acer provides all of the tools you need. get the copy of imagex off of the recovery cd: \PATCH\TOOLS and get your image off of the windows XP CD: \IMAGES *.SWM and you are good to go.
What i did was boot into my acer using ERD Commander from a thumb drive and then opened up the command prompt to build the wim image and then restore that to the built in SSD.
imagex /ref *.swm /export POP01021P2EN3C21.SWM 1 d:\acer.wim "aspire"
imagex /apply e:\acer.wim 1 c:\
of course i had to fix the master boot record with mbrfix (a sweet replacement utility for the recovery console's fixmbr tool) and then I had to mark the partition as active (using ERD's disc manager). I can honestly say that I have never been so happy restoring windows. Really.
Comments
@Dii, What i usually do is copy the swm files and imagex to one directory on a working computer and run the first command ( imagex /ref *.swm /export POP01021P2EN3C21.SWM 1 C:\acer.wim "aspire" )
this makes one backup image called acer.wim on your C: drive. Next i copy that file and imagex onto a thumb drive and run the next command (imagex /apply e:\acer.wim 1 c:\) in erd commander. This restores that image to your acer's local drive. reboot and you're done. - nabiy
* check out this site for a tutorial on using erd commander from your thumb drive:
http://forum.xatrix.org/tutorials-f26/erd-commander-2005-usb-t1552.html
the application also has many other switches to explore, it is quite handy in a batch-tool environment. :)
Help
JB
As a thought, couldn't you have selected english as the windows language after the installation?
quite interesting tutorial.
im in the office right now so i cant do the actual instructions.
my machine is AOD255 with N550, 250Gig.
It can dual boot with Android 1.6.
OS is Win7 starter, original partition is C (win7).
First i installed easeus to resize C to 60G and D for the remaining.
I made USB XP from wintoflash, but got a Hal.dll error after installation, it appreared that if i boot again from USB and choose disk 1 partion 4, it can boot from XP, i can also safely remove the USB after bootup.
During installation of XP i noticed few drives or partion w/c includes PQservice.
This is also evident when i resize drive C.
After unsuccessfull "normal" bootup from XP (using USB everytime to b able to boot). i finally decided to restore my Win7 by alt F10, everything works perfectly during restoration but when booting, had an error that the machine cannot boot.
So booting again from USB to XP, i tried to show PQservice as drive Z using easeus.
my questions are:
1. after i followed your instructions here, is it possible to completely erase all the partitions? is it safe?
because i saw few partions like 100MB, 4G (android i think), 4Gig (system), 13Gig (pqservice), 60gig (xp), 180G (new resized partition).
2. Is the 100MB needed to restore win7?
3. there are few more other folders in the PQservice drive like "patch", etc. How do i run it?
regards,
Victor