Acer s3 ultrabook restore went wrong

[zafod37]

Hey folks

Warning what you are about to read may make you cry or laugh your socks off.

I have an Acer S3 Ultrabook that I have had for over a year now. i backed it up as soon as I got it using the Acer Backup Manager to an external usb drive its a 1tb drive that I keep multiple computer backups on. Now I usually use Acronis to back up my systems because it is simple to use.

Anyway, Thursday of last week I found i was unable to boot windows and the startup repair wasnt working either, which was followed by a blue screen. no problem I thought. I plugged in the external drive to the usb port, then attatched the usb dvdrw, inserted the acronis recovery disc then went through the process of recovering my hd. once the pc rebooted I realized my mistake. I had used the wrong image to recover my disc. I also remembered too late that I had indeed used Acer back up manager and NOT acronis to back up the acer hd originally.

I now had a glitchy windows 7 OS working but no Acer Back up manager to recover the files. Also the OS I had on my Acer now, wasnt working and kept crashing. by now it was 2am and I was very tired but I wanted to get this sorted. So in desperation I took a windows 7 home premium disc and decided to install a fresh copy of windows.

Things went from bad to worse, I somehow managed to format the wrong drive wiping the ssd that I believe holds the start up files, again once i realized it was too late. so I went ahead and installed the fresh copy of windows on my C drive successfully. At 4am I finally had a working ultrabook again, although the files that should have been on the ssd drive were now all together on the cdrive.

The questions I have are:
1. What files or programs should be on the SSD?
2. If I found someone who had a back up image of both drives would they work on my PC?
3. Does anyone have a backup image of both the SSD and HD for the Acer Aspire S3 951?
4. Does using the SSD make any real difference?
I could send it back to Acer but it is out of warranty and it would probably cost me more than I can afford.

I would be grateful for your help and opinion of this matter, no need to tell me how dumb I have been cause I already know .

Lesson learned is NEVER work on a pc when tired, wait till morning!!!!

Cheers Folks

Mark

 

[Kaktussoft]

Oh my god, what a disaster! Making backups is a good thing, many people don't even do it! That's the good thing, all the rest ... shit happens.

What's the situation now? You wiped internal spinning disk and SSD as well? Old stuff is gone?
Do you still have a recent backup?

 

[zafod37]

I have a back up of the spinning disc but i used acer back up manager which I no longer have so I cant restore it, but yes both the spinning disc and the SSD are wiped.

I have just sent an email to Acer asking them how much they will charge me for repairing it. I don't think it will be within my budget though. It is said we learn by our mistakes which is true enough. Once I get this back to the way it was I will be using Acronis to take an image of both the spinning HD and the SSD which in hindsight I should have done in the beginning rather than rely on the acer backup manager. I have never had any problems with Acronis so I should have stuck to that.

I will keep you up to date as to what Acer say.

Mark

 

[Kaktussoft]

I have a back up of the spinning disc but i used acer back up manager which I no longer have so I cant restore it, but yes both the spinning disc and the SSD are wiped.

I have just sent an email to Acer asking them how much they will charge me for repairing it. I don't think it will be within my budget though. It is said we learn by our mistakes which is true enough. Once I get this back to the way it was I will be using Acronis to take an image of both the spinning HD and the SSD which in hindsight I should have done in the beginning rather than rely on the acer backup manager. I have never had any problems with Acronis so I should have stuck to that.

I will keep you up to date as to what Acer say.

Mark

But you have win7 running now and product key was valid? Porduct key to use for installation can be found on a sticker on laptop.
why not simply install Acer Backup Manager? Download program Acer Backup Manager by NewTech Infosystems
And then do a restore?

 

[zafod37]

I have tried that link but the download never initialises

 

[Kaktussoft]

I have tried that link but the download never initialises

This works(?) http://download.informer.com/stor/231414/bm_20063_basic_update.exe

 

[zafod37]

Thanks for the link, however, this is for an update program, it requires that you already have acer backup manager installed which unfortunately I no longer have. Thanks for trying though.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I have the installation set on my acer laptop (but actually did uninstall the software).
Wanna have it? It's in folder C:\OEM\Preload\Autorun\APP\Acer Backup Manager
Sinze 67MB, zipped 60MB

How to transfer to you?

 

[zafod37]

yes that would be awesome ty, I dunno how to get it though... do you have a box.com account?

Mark

 

[Kaktussoft]

yes that would be awesome ty, I dunno how to get it though... do you have a box.com account?

Mark

Just unzip and run setup.exe
https://www.wetransfer.com/dl/28pHu...b19ca151664e18d8d99fed15568e891678f4ae55a9b2d

 

[zafod37]

yes that would be awesome ty, I dunno how to get it though... do you have a box.com account?

Mark

Just unzip and run setup.exe
https://www.wetransfer.com/dl/28pHu...b19ca151664e18d8d99fed15568e891678f4ae55a9b2d

Thanks for trying to help Kaktussoft, I installed acer back up manager expecting an option to restore the files but no such luck. I am still waiting to see if Acer will charge me a lot to put it back the way it was. It is still under warranty I have found out but due to expire soon.

At the very worst I will have a windows 7 notebook that has a spare 20gb SSD lol.

If anyone has a disc image of both the 20gb SDD and the 320gb HD taken with something other than acer back up manager I would be gratefull for a copy and details of the program used. A long shot I know but worth asking.

I added to your rep as I apreciate the help.

Mark

 

[zafod37]

Just to update you, I had a reply from Acer today, they tell me they can either send me a set of recovery CD's for £51.50 or they can arrange for me to send it in to have it restored to original specs for £71.00. I am in two minds about this. If I try the recovery CD method and it doesn't work I am left with sending it in anyway. So do you think it might be better to go with the second option and send it in?

Mark

 

[Kaktussoft]

in acer backup manager you see a tab "tools" then create bootable cd/dvd? Create it and boot from it! Works?

Why order acer recover dvd's?

• WIN7 can be downloaded and burned
• product key is on back of laptop
• drivers are already in win7 or will automatically be downloaded by windows update
• drivers can be found on acer site. search for your model. Most likely not necessary at all!

Backup Manager - Image My Drive - YouTube

 

[Kaktussoft]

Samsung R530 notebook is in your system specifications(?)
I thougth you have an acer? What is the exact brand and type?

 

[zafod37]

yes I do have an acer but i restored the acer using the samsung image which wasnt working very well. So I decided to install a fresh copy of windows 7 unfortunately I managed to screw up and wiped the wrong drive, I managed to format the 20gb SSD which I believe is used to improve the start up times. I eventually got the clean install of windows 7 on the 320gb hard drive (spinning drive) and used the key to activiate windows 7 successfully. I did indeed download the drivers from Acer and all works fine... except for the 20gb SSD which is formatted but has nothing on it.

I was wanting both drives to work as they should do, just like when I first purchased the machine. however because of my screw up it has rendered the SSD as a spare drive.

ACER Ultrabook S3 951. 20gb SSD - 320gb HD

There is no tools tab showing in acer back up manager that I can see>

 

[NoN]

Might want to send it to Acer, as you said if you're ordering the CDs and it still goes wrong....Looks it is hell you been through!

The CDs are that expensive?

Might they give a warranty for few month with the returned notebook....if!

 

[zafod37]

Yes just a wee nightmare but hopefully it will come to an end soon. I don't think they will offer an extension of the warranty though.

 

[NoN]

when computer's back better do an image of the drive to save the all lot and put it carefully in the cupboard!!

This one, not with Acer Backup Manager.....! Use the tutorial section of the Sevenforums to see which tools are the best to clone a drive, ask!

 

[Kaktussoft]

So win7 is running fine and all drivers installed? Look in device manager... any strange things?
SSD was normally your C-drive ... correct? But what was before all the problems on internal spinning disk?

 

[zafod37]

I found this description of the acer s3 drives functions which is probably better than mine

There are two functions in an SSD + HDD solution:

1. Quicker boot, or Rapid Resume
2. SSD type performance, or Smart Response Technology SRT

With SRT it combines HDD+SSD into what looks like a big SSD. The good news is that this works really well. The bad news is that the S3 was an early model, and did not support a chipset that support Smart Response. So, the only thing Acer uses the SSD for is boot.

hope that helps