Hi i have an acer aspire m5100 have backed up the 500gb hard drive and needed to change hard drives but when i restored both partitions and tried to do an erecovery it doesn't work didn't clone the drive just backed up both partitions

If you have no internal hard drive installed you won't get it to work correctly as the hard drive is where the data is stored for the operating system.

According to this review there is no optical drive, (CD/DVD drive),

http://www.naaptol.com/laptops/acer-aspire-3684nwxmi/P/779.html

The new harddrive is blank. No Operating System on it.

No Windows.

After a person installs a new harddrive, the basic procedure is to use the Restoration Disk, and when asked choose Full Install.
(Destructive Installation)

No optical drive.

[No Restoration Disk is NO problem. Contact HP Support.
In the US it is $17 for a 5 to 7 day ship, $24 for a 2 to 3 day ship.
Have more info for US, and other countries if you need it ]

This means you will go through some 'changes', if no optical drive.
More than I believe you may wish to take on.
(Don't want to overstep myself, or seem rude)

The next thing is there may be a harddrive limit.
Might be capped at 135GB, and not allow a 300, or 500GB harddrive.
If this holds true the harddrive is then partitioned;

300GB harddrive;
Partitioned into 3 partitions, of 100GB each; or 4 partitions of 75GB each.

500GB harddrive;
Partitioned into 4 partitions of 125GB each.

Fools BIOS into thinking there is just a 75GB, or 100GB, or 125GB harddrive; instead of a 300GB, or 500GB unit.

Yes. More headache if you may not be adept.

I suggest using an external harddrive instead.

Just my thoughts,
Regards,
joecoolvette

This model Acer has a restore partition on the hard disk.
Check out this WEB site for instruction on restoring the laptop back to the out of the box condition.
http://www.pctechbytes.com/acer/acer-aspire-system-recovery-partition/

Your hard drive may have unused space configured as a partition with no format. Go to administrative tools, Computer management, Disk management to see what is going on.

Hi you should be able to do the following, if not you will need an external CD drive & recovery disk.


1. Consider what data you still need from your Acer Aspire One's hard drive. Save the files to an external USB device.

2. Restart the Acer Aspire One's operating system. Wait for the Acer logo to appear on the LCD screen.

3. Press the "Alt" and "F10" keys at the same time to bring up the recovery menu. Press "Enter."

4. Click "Next." Follow the prompts that appear on the screen to restore the operating system back to factory settings.

5. Use the drop-down boxes to select the time zone and language information for your Acer Aspire One. Restart the netbook when you are prompted to finish restoring the computer.

6. Connect the external USB device to your Acer Aspire One and transfer the data you saved earlier back to the netbook.

Warning:
It is possible to delete the hard drive partition that has the recovery tool.

If your Acer Aspire One no longer has the recovery partition, you will need
to acquire an external USB DVD drive and then contact Acer for a recovery DVD.
Connect the USB drive to the netbook's USB port and then insert the recovery DVD in the drive.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

With Acer One's there is usually a hidden partition that will allow you to recover the operating system to factory defaults without the use of a flashdrive or a CD/DVD drive.

To recover the operating system please follow the below instructions carefully.

Consider what data you still need from your Acer Aspire One's hard drive. Save the files to an external USB device.

Restart the Acer Aspire One's operating system. Wait for the Acer logo to appear on the LCD screen.

Press the "Alt" and "F10" keys at the same time to bring up the recovery menu. Press "Enter."

Click "Next." Follow the prompts that appear on the screen to restore the operating system back to factory settings.

Use the drop-down boxes to select the time zone and language information for your Acer Aspire One. Restart the netbook when you are prompted to finish restoring the computer.

That should be it. All you have to do from there is restore any files you backed up before the recovery.


If there is anything else please post back.



Regards.

It's a Vista compatability issue,This is very common and they should have some kind a patch for it soon. Here is a link to read for more details and data recovery options.

Please take time to rate this fixya.

I got it to work by deleting all the partitions on my drive (I first loaded xp, loaded system commander 9, and used that to delete all the partitions.)

Then while booting from the recovery cd, holding down alt-f10, the recovery dialog said it was partitioning the drive. (I didn't see this before, even if I partitioned the drive like it came from the factory.)

Then the rest of the recovery worked.

Hi,

the backup partition, is used for system restore et,c.
You should really leave this intact.
Your options are, to purchase an additional external hard-drive.
Or to backup all drivers, used by the computer. Re-format the drive. setup the Vista software, if you have the Vista Software. Which is unlikely with a shop purchased computer.
you will then have the full sized partition, but no restore partition. Unless you use re-partitioning software after formatting the logical drive.

Hope this solves your dilema.

thankyou for using Fixya.

mike @ compurepair.