Anyone ever used eRecovery to reinstall apps/drivers?

Has anyone ever successfully tried the "Reinstall applications/drivers" function of Acer eRecovery Management?

I.e. I am NOT talking about the "Restore system to factory default" function.

The reason I ask is that, at least for me, the menus do not work, because the bottom title bar is off-screen, i.e. invisible, i.e. unusable.

When I start eRecovery, I get the main window. I then select "Reinstall applications/drivers". I then get a new window which says "Navigate using the top and bottom title bars." and instructs to click on "Contents". When I do that, I get a new window which has three serious problems:

1. The bottom of the window is off-screen, i.e. there IS no (visible) "bottom title bar".

2. The blue header line above the list of drivers/applications says "Windows Vista Software". Note *Vista*, while this is obviously an *XP* machine.

3. The list of applications is minimal, much less than is actually installed. Only Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash player and InterVideo WinDVD. That's all!

Probably 2. is just a minor glitch, i.e. they forgot to change "Vista" to "XP". And 3. is possibly a consequence of 1., i.e. because I can not see the bottom title bar, I can also not see/select what else is hopefully there.

Can anyone reproduce/solve this problem?

You don't have to do any actual reinstallation to reproduce, just the above should be sufficient. So this is a no-risk thing.

If you respond, please mention which version of eRecovery you have. It is in the "About:" section of the first window. My version is 2.1.3000.

I searched on Acer's European and US sites and found nothing. I searched these forums on "eRecovery" which led me to <http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_150.html>, which has version 2.1.3001, i.e. just *slightly* higher (than 2.1.3000). The ZIP file contains a Release Notes PDF, but these notes do not mention the problem, so I am reluctant to try this version (and possibly make things worse).

I also tried to create more screen space at the bottom by setting the Taskbar to Auto-hide, and tried a different screen resolution (only other choice is 800x600, instead of 1024x600), but that did not help.

I also tried the Alt+F10 procedure at bootup, but that version of eRecovery only has the "Restore system to factory default" function, not the applications/drivers function.

Thanks in advance for any and all responses.

Ozlover a.k.a. Frank

 

When 'Reinstall applications/drivers' is selected in eRecovery, the apps/drivers 'CD' is extracted from the recovery partition (provided that the progress bar completes successfully).

eRecovery copies this apps/drivers 'CD', in its entirety, to windows/system32/autorun. The contents of 'autorun' amount to 'CD2', which will be obvious once you examine said contents.

I don't remember if the files stay there permanently, or just until you close eRecovery, but in any case you can copy the entire 'autorun' folder from windows/system32 off to somewhere else, and then you will have it so that you may run the setup programs for the apps/drivers independently of the eRecovery menu system. The 'CD' itself has a menu system, but you needn't use it since the folder structure reveals which files are where.

There is actually also a method to extract a bootable 'disc1' from the recovery partition.. but in order to accomplish that I needed to use an eRecovery utility (and a modified configuration file) from another Acer model. The eRecovery utility for the Aspire One obviously was not configured to extract recovery discs - probably because there is no internal device to burn them with - but the discs are in the recovery partition image nonetheless.

 

Thanks goapy. That is very useful information!

I browsed the \WINDOWS\system32\autorun directory structure, and the main problem seems to be that there IS little else (than eRecovery lists).

There is the Dritek Launch Manager, but that's also in eRecovery (I just didn't bother to mention it).

The stuff I was 'missing' is also not in autorun: Microsoft Office (trial), Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003 (perhaps this is a part of XP itself) , McAfee and Yahoo! Toolbar.

There some stuff in autorun, which is not in eRecovery: Acer ScreenSaver.

All it all, the real 'problem' seems to be that "Reinstall applications/drivers" does not really do what it suggests. I.e. it probably can reinstall most or all of the drivers, but very few of the applications.

The missing stuff is not really important to *me*, but the whole thing is yet another bad experience with Acer's and especially the One's reinstall 'functionality'.

I love the machine itself, but am largely unimpressed by Acer's software, not to mention Acer's non-existant 'support'.

But I'm starting to ramble, so I'll shut up!

Thanks again!

 

Yeah, all that is on the apps/driver disk is the drivers, WinDVD, and Adobe. Note that the WinDVD folder in eRecovery is incomplete and not installable, whereas the CD (autorun) version is installable. Also note that autorun has both the white and the black versions of the aspire one wallpaper, while eRecovery has only the white version (I think).

Microsoft Office (trial), Microsoft Works, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003 do not have standalone installation programs anywhere in the recovery partition. They seem to have been integrated into the OS when Acer set up the distribution. To reinstall any of these, you have to recover the entire OS, or obtain them elsewhere. Microsoft offers free downloads of the PowerPoint Viewer and Office. PowerPoint Viewer 2003 has been replaced by PowerPoinst Viewer 2007, but Microsoft still has both versions available for download. For Microsoft Works, you'll have to find it elsewhere or recover the OS.

McAfee doesn't have a full standalone install .exe, only a small .exe that Launch Manager uses to configure it at bootup. There is a standalone .exe elsewhere in the recovery partition for the yahoo toolbar. I think it is in 'acernb' or a similar named directory on the recovery partition. The same directory in the recovery partition has a few other installable files, mostly acer setup stuff. I hate McAfee and yahoo toolbar... but I suppose at least one person on the planet must like them or at least be able to tolerate them.