After warranty I tried to use a new copy of xp pro to create single partition. Now restore discs wont work and windows is saying copy not genuine.Would like to use license original to comp.What can I do? Any help would be appreciated. TIA.
nanobrain
06-28-2006, 12:38 PM
IIRC the restore disks are expecting the original partitioning of the hard drive. The way to go is to make an image of the entire hard drive before you create a single partition.
In this post you can get more information on how to make your Acer license key work: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread102904.html
HTH,
1E-9
DarthAcer
06-28-2006, 02:56 PM
Actually there was a nice post by someone (not me) not long ago in Acer set of forums that neatly summarized the whole thing about clean OEM install in a single writeup. I don't have a link unfortunatley. Try a search. I think it was about clean install on 8206 or at least 820x series.
Also, while making partitioning, try to create FAT32 partitions - the software on Acer restore discs does not seem to work with NTFS (or so I hear).
Drio
06-28-2006, 04:09 PM
@ironhorsenyc
Just contact MS, if you installed the same Windows version as the one that came with your machine and explain that you already own a license you will (most surely) get activation for free.
When you say restore disks do you mean:
a. the SystemCD + 2 Recovery CDs you got from Acer
b. your backup DVD/CDs
Re a. should work even with only 1 partition (which should be FAT32 as indicated by DarthAcer
Note: this is fromTM8106 experience (SystemCD rev.6 for TM8100 series)
Re b. requires the Acer MBR to be there
you can restore it from DOS with mbrwrdos.exe and rtmbr.bin from your backup DVD (it isn't on the system CD)
but you may need to resore the Acer partition structure
1. small FAT partition set to type 12h
2. your ACER partition FAT32
3. your ACERDATA partition FAT32 (actually doesn't matter)
you need 1 because the Acer MBR hides the 1st partition
and you need the MBR because the second phase of restore from backup (the patching of the image) breaks if it doesn't find the MBR, though your machine will still boot, be it with an incomplete facotry installation
in both cases it won't install eRecovery which needs a fully fledged hidden partition.