Used system recovery disks purchased from ACER not working

[Imalexa]

Are installation disks and the recovery disks the same thing? I only have the Acer recovery disks, I never received a windows 7 installation disk on either of the computers it was already installed when purchased. I only have the OEM product code, which won't allow me to download the windows operating system from microsoft.

 

[maxseven]

OK Maxseven, is a hard drive specific for the manufacturer? Or can I pull a hard drive out of another laptop a gateway and use that one. Sorry, I just don't know, I am really not trying to be difficult.

So long as the hard drive physically fits, and has enough capacity for your needs, it should work.

Like I said, I've not used Acer's recovery disks but I'd assume that one of the first things it will do is look at your HDD and say "I've got to blast-away everything on it to do this recovery. Are you OK with that?" ie. it will want to re-format your hard drive.

BTW I hope that your Windows Product Key/Label is visible on the underside of your laptop as you will need that to re-install Windows.

EDIT: You just said you have the code so it oughta work. Worth a try anyway. Yes you said you had multiple disks (DVDs?) so I'm quite sure Windows is on these--Back to Just As Shipped!

 

[whs]

The product key for your system should be on the COA sticker on your system. It looks something like this:





The Acer recovery discs should be usable for a fresh installation. But to be sure I suggest to ask Acer.

 

[SIW2]

Burn it to cd/dvd. Boot it up. Lots of repair tools on there, plus you can see your drive.

 

[torchwood]

@ WHS,
they will if he uses Acer HP image.
He wont even have to use the sticker code

Roy

 

[Imalexa]

haha, ok, I'm a girl lol. And you are not going to believe this. I took the hard drive out of a compaq presario and I put it into the Acer, then I put the first disk in from Acer. You were right Maxseven, the hard drive must have been bad. The screen that is coming up looks like the one that was on the compaq. How do I make it back to acer?
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank all of you for your help. OK so now I can use the recovery disks to make it back to factory settings correct?

 

[Imalexa]

It appears to be loading all the drivers from the acer recovery disk

 

[torchwood]

COOOL,
with luck it should auto activate as well.

Roy

 

[Imalexa]

Thank you so much to
WHS, Maxseven, Torchwood, and SIW2. I appreciate all of the advice and helpful tips to get this thing back and running. I really cannot thank you enough for your patience dealing with a person with VERY limited computer skills. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help me. Now, I won't be angry at work tomorrow.
Alexa

 

[Imalexa]

ok, maybe I spoke too soon. After I put the hard drive in I started to run the recovery disks from Acer. I changed the boot drive to the CD/DVD and everything appeared to be going smoothly. As it was loading the information after the partition and new hard drive were recognized (on the other HD nothing was showing) I thought it was smooth sailing. Then after loading the image file, It stopped and said that one of the images couldn't be loaded onto the HD, and when I clicked cancel, it took me to a DOS screen and then said that the BOOTMGR wasn't found. I attempted to do it again with the recovery disks and it stopped and the same screen saying that the same image file couldn't be downloaded to the HD. I am at a loss, any suggestions would be greatly appreciate. I have school today, but will be in around 7pm Eastern Time. I would love to see what you all come up with, because I have no idea.
Thanks for everything so far,
Alexa

 

[maxseven]

Then after loading the image file, It stopped and said that one of the images couldn't be loaded onto the HD

Unless someone here has used Acer recovery disks (I have not) it will be hard for us to imagine what is happening. Have you tried to find an Acer support forum to discuss this?

In the alternative you might try posting a few screen shots to show exactly what you are seeing when you boot from DVD, ending with the "can't load image" screen of course.

Otherwise the only thing I can think of is a long shot: that the disk drive you swiped out of the Compaq is too small for Acer's process. But even 40GB should be enough--I think I have a 40GB SSD in my Acer netbook running W7HP x64.