Restore ACER 3000 OS

[linw]

Can't figure out why I can't restore the OS from the PQSERVICE partition. The XP got bad file corruption and the Macrium image I had wouldn't save cos Macrium said it was corrupt.

I extracted the 60 GB HDD and formatted the 52GB partition in NTFS format with name ACER and this looks fine. (It was 2 X 30 GB, originally, but had been made into one partition earlier).

I can start the recovery utility but it gets to the select target partition screen then immediately overlays it with a message saying it is going to write over the partition containing the "File Preservation Metadata File". I can't move the error screen but I can see parts of the underlying screen which seems to say it can't see the 52GB partition.

It lists 3 partitions. 1. is greyed and has size of 0
2. is red (selected) with size 1883 (probably the PQSERVICE partition?)
3. is black with size 87

My Win7 disk management only shows two partitions.

Anyone know what might be the problem here? Google is failing me so far!

[wainuitech]

Can you have a look inside the recovery partition ?

Being XP it's possible theres a ISO file, if so you may be able to burn it, and install from that, Or is it a .WIM file ?

I actually had something similar earlier this week with a Vista Laptop, the recovery partition wouldn't load at all, at one stage it tried, but the corruption had damaged it as well -- It was AVG that damaged the OS, 4 PC's this week all with the same exact problem -- they had AVG, updated it, and as they say the rest all turn to :yuck: after that.

edited: I even tried some suggestions from Here (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110128110334AAw7IK4) - but in my case it was beyond hope, so a complete wipe of the drive and loaded in from scratch.

[linw]

Thanks, WT. I can get into the PQSERVICE partition. The install files seem to be a series of .GHS files (for Acronis Ghost) in a 1.3GB folder called Images.

The problem, as I see it, is that the restore doesn't see the partition that it is supposed to restore too. The only partition it sees is the PQSERVICE one, hence the overwrite warning. Some magic needs to be done to the ACER partition to get it recognized?

Originally, these had the drive split into two equal FAT32 partitions (ACER and DATA). I shrunk the ACER partition and formatted to FAT32 in case this was the problem but it still gives the same error as before.

Just as well this is a 'recreation' job! The laptop was given to me. Even if I do get it restored, I don't know what I will do with it! Maybe it could become a Linux laptop??

[linw]

A miracle has just occurred! It restored itself and is applying SP3 as we speak. Quite honestly, I don't know how it happened.

I thought I would try installing XP from a copy I have here. It started up and at the partition selection it said it needed to format so I let it at it. Then I noticed it seemed to be telling me it was formatting the recovery partition! I powered it off thinking, oh well, never mind, it didn't recover anyway.

Booted it again with the XP CD in and it started the recovery! Even better, it could see the partition to recover to. It did its bizzo and rebooted to a black screen. I removed the drive and set C: Active and next startup it booted fine.

Everything looks perfectly standard.

Lottery ticket time tomorrow!!