Can I restore back to Factory Settings Vista?

Please let us know what happens. This information could be useful to others who may encounter the same situation.

I put Boot Order back to default and by using F10 key got it to boot from my recovery discs but although all three loaded OK when it came to the next part I still kept getting error message “Restore failed- error code 1117 (the request could not be performed because of an I/O error)”
So I have been in touch with Acer and requested recovery discs (at a cost of approx £50). The discs will take about 14 working days (ordered a week ago) so with Christmas in between I don’t expect to receive these for another week or two.
Will post an update when I get discs.

Belated Christmas Best wishes!

Susan, how I wish you would have kept in touch with us here before being gouged like that by Acer for recov disks!

Your Vista can be clean reinstalled booting ANY Vista installer and will activate with the OEM license key stickered to it.

If the Vista installer you locate isn't the same version, we can walk you through an easy process to unlock all versions and burn back to DVD to boot it and install Vista.

Heck, we really didn't even get a chance to help you troubleshoot the Win7 issues before you reported that you were bailing out. I know I would have taken special care to help you get your Win7 running after all you went through with the external drive.

I don't know if you can still avoid having to pay such an exorbitant amount for bloated Vista recov disks, but please be assured that we are here to help you if you can, whether you want to give Win7 another chance or do a clean intall of Vista to reactivate the native license on that machine.

Best wishes,
Greg

It sounds like a bad hard drive.

gregrocker said:

Susan, how I wish you would have kept in touch with us here before being gouged like that by Acer for recov disks!

Your Vista can be clean reinstalled booting ANY Vista installer and will activate with the OEM license key stickered to it.

If the Vista installer you locate isn't the same version, we can walk you through an easy process to unlock all versions and burn back to DVD to boot it and install Vista.

Heck, we really didn't even get a chance to help you troubleshoot the Win7 issues before you reported that you were bailing out. I know I would have taken special care to help you get your Win7 running after all you went through with the external drive.

I don't know if you can still avoid having to pay such an exorbitant amount for bloated Vista recov disks, but please be assured that we are here to help you if you can, whether you want to give Win7 another chance or do a clean intall of Vista to reactivate the native license on that machine.

Best wishes,
Greg

What he said...

Plus I would rather try working out the Win 7 issues before going back to vista, because Win 7 is just that much better

Tepid said:

Well Acer should have gone through some trouble shooting and hardware diags. Which they probably did not.

Very good point. Susan, can you download and burn to CD the DOS diagnostics/repair disk for your HD? It is normally found on the Support Downloads page for your HD model. Seagate has Seatools, WD has Data Lifeguard, etc. I can find it for you but the HD make/model is not listed in the 8935G specs.

Tepid said:

clean reinstalled booting ANY Vista installer and will activate with the OEM license key

Unless there was some change in the way MS delivers it's media, this is not true.
Big Box OEM is different from System Builder OEM (but it is possible that depending on the big box OEM that a System Builder OEM disk might activate, but not always).

Retail disks will not activate with a OEM Key and vice versa.
You can not activate an HP OEM install with a Dell OEM key and vice versa, etc..

Volume license keys will not activate on OEM or Retail disks and vice versa, etc. etc.

She obviously doesn't have System Builder OEM or Volume License so I am not addressing that as I dont' know for sure.

But Vista and WIndows 7 installers are not like XP as they can be used to install or reinstall either retail or OEM.

We do it all the time here, clean reinstalling to activate factory OEM licenses using a retail Vista or Win7 installer. Unlock all versions if necessary.

Tepid said:

Also, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Well I certainly agree that one shouldn't bother clean reinstalling Vista or Win7 unless there is a license to activate it.

That was the point: manufacturers started enforcing bloatware so refused to provide clean copy DVD's, forcing users to use their own installers to clean reinstall, activating using the legal OEM license on the box.

Tepid said:

I had also suggested that she run HDD Diags and explained how to find what model hard drive she has, but that was pretty much ignored.

I'm sorry you missed that, Tepid, because it was at the top of my post you reference:

gregrocker said:

Tepid said:

Well Acer should have gone through some trouble shooting and hardware diags. Which they probably did not.

Very good point. Susan, can you download and burn to CD the DOS diagnostics/repair disk for your HD? It is normally found on the Support Downloads page for your HD model. Seagate has Seatools, WD has Data Lifeguard, etc. I can find it for you but the HD make/model is not listed in the 8935G specs.

I received the replacement recovery discs from Acer yesterday but when I put them in the exact same problem happened as with my own discs - gets part way then says “Restore failed, error code 1117. Request could not be performed because of an I/O Device Error “
Could this be because I did a clean install of Vista 7?
I now have a wiped C drive and no operating system on laptop!
Btw HDD are made by Toshiba who don’t seem to do download diagnostic tools
Susan