NEED HELP PLEASE - Recovery Partition

[hachi101]

Before I say anything, I would like to explain why I am here today and why I need what I am going to be asking for( the explanation is a bit long so please bear with me)

I recently had my 11.6" AO751h-1948 Acer Aspire One w/Windows XP Home running a dual boot ubuntu and XP home [ reason for me installing Ubuntu was so I could have a portable Linux/Ubuntu machine ] but it wasn't until I fully installed Ubuntu that I realize that it didn't have all the drivers I needed and did not perform very well at all. So I decided to uninstall it from my net-book and being the scatter brain that I sometimes am; I hurriedly uninstalled Ubuntu thinking I could just boot back into XP on the next start up, but to my dismay, Ubuntu had completely taken over the boot loader/MBR.

So I thought to myself " no big deal, I'll just run the Windows Xp repair console and fix the mbr" and so I did. Thinking I had fixed the issue I rebooted and now I'm starring into a black LCD screen with the words GRUB LOADER MISSING gracing the top left corner mocking me. "Oh well" I said to my self as I knew that I could just reboot and use the ALT+F10 keys to run my acer recovery and get back to factory defaults; here is where the story takes a massive turn for the worse.

After rebooting, I repeatedly hit the two special keys, which as it turned out, now, did nothing more than a long chain of beeps and forwarded me to the same black screen assuring me of certain doom and being the idiot that I am I didn't make a backup/recovery DVD the day I first used my net-book( and yes I made sure that D2D recovery was enabled in my BIOS settings).

So began a 3-day long search of what seemed to be the the entire internet, when I finally came across a FIX for my problem. The "FIX" included a complete re-install of windows xp from my XP home disc and a little program called PARTEDIT32. This allowed me to reboot into the Acer Recovery and re-install my netbook to factory settings; "what a great find and fix" I thought to myself as I was surfing the web once more on my fully restored netbook.

That is until I went back to the site to thank the person who had came up with the "FIX". It was there that I noticed that there was another "FIX" for the issue which was more relevant to the one I had just done. It required the use of the same little program "PARTTEDIT32" and a few files contained in the PQSERVICE partition ( aka the recovery partition ) which were mbrwrwin.exe and rtmbr.bin. After reading the instructions on how to do this more permanent fix I went in search of said files on my PQSERVICE partition to no avail. I then proceeded to ask my good friend Google, if anyone had these file readily available and was willing to share. Well, as you would probably guess, I didn't find them and after a few more failed searches i stumbled upon this Forum and this sub-forum.

So here I am, practically on my knees, begging if anyone would upload and share their PQSERVICE partition with me. So that I may go about with the re-assuring ability to hit those 2 special keys anytime I want and restore to factory defaults and see that sweet, sweet recovery screen we all know and love. If received, I will be forever grateful and highly appreciative of that person (and once installed) ; I will immediately go in and change the WINDOWS XP HOME Serial/Product number to my own(located on the COA, on the back of my AO751h-1948)

So please, please, please help a fellow aspire one user out. Thank You.

 

[Swarvey]

You could always just try the following:

1. Grab an XP Home Edition CD that matches your install (probably Windows XP Home Edition OEM)
2. Either boot it from an external USB Optical drive, or create and boot a bootable USB Flash drive

Then either one of the following:
1. Run through the installation but choose the second "Repair" option, to reinstall windows over itself (leaving your files & settings intact), this should also fix the boot loader, but you'll have to re-download and re-install any updates includin SP's
or
2. Use the first recovery option to take you to the recovery console, there you should be able to run:
FIXBOOT
FIXMBR
BOOTCFG /REBUILD

This should fix the boot issues by restoring the MBR, fixing the boot settings, and rebuilding the boot loader. FIXBOOT and FIXMBR are probably un-necessary as it's probably just the boot loader that's been userpt by *ugh* linux

 

[hachi101]

I appreciate your quick response, but those were among some of the first things I tried after I received the GRUB LOADER MISSING message.

I think I should make clear, that the MBR that was replaced was the ACER MBR on the PQSERVICE Partition along with the Windows XP boot loader/MBR. How it was erased I have no idea, probably a mistake on my behalf. Which resulted in me not being able to run the recovery with the ALT+F10 keys, even though the D2D is enabled in the BIOS.

Though I have the net-book functioning now, I still don't have access to the ALT+F10 Recovery mode at boot-up. It's not to say I can't restore my net-book to factory settings, it's just that I have to go out of my way to make the PQSERVICE partition visible and then make it bootable through PATEDIT32, after I have logged into windows and if I were to say catch a virus/ad-ware or something had gone horribly wrong and I needed to restore factory settings it would be quite difficult to do so.

 

[hachi101]

Please? anyone?....

I know I can't be the only AO751h owner out there. This model was very high stream among the big SUPER/Bulk buy stores all around the states and even across the pond. Someone, somewhere, must have a backed up partition/DVD that they can share.

 

[Swarvey]

Have you actually tried the second repair option on the Windows XP disk? The one that essentially reinstalls Windows over itself? It should at the very least fix your boot issues.

 

[hachi101]

Well, that won't have much effect as it is the ALT+F10 recovery mode that is my main issue. As I have said in my previous post, the ACER E-Recovery MBR must have been damaged, which has resulted in me not being able to use the ALT+F10 Recovery mode. The PQSERVICE ( the hidden Partition that the ALT+F10 uses to boot into recovery mode ) is still there, but what ever it is ( whether it be MBR or some kind of autorun program/file ) is either damaged or missing; thus it will no longer respond to the ALT+F10 keystroke; anyhow, I appreciate the response.

 

[Swarvey]

Yes but I'm talking about usin an actual Windows XP Home disk, not recovery disks. This method has absolutely nothing to do with the ALT+F10 method.

Have you actually tried the second repair option on the Windows XP disk?....

 

[hachi101]

I understand what your getting at, but i don't understand how that would help me get back my ALT+F10 functionality. The way I see it, the only thing using the Windows XP home Re-Install w/file and settings intact would do, is restore Win XP to a freshly loaded state and as I had mentioned in my previous post, that is not what I am trying to achieve here. Still, even if I did that, it wouldn't modify anything in the PQSERVICE partition and I do believe that is where the problem lies.

For windows XP boots and runs just fine, but it is the ALT+F10 functionality that I am trying to get back. I don't know if I'm being really clear ( on the fact that I'm not a very articulate person and sometimes struggle to get my point across ) but here is the fix that I used. It also told me what the issue was and a few fixes, perhaps this can clear a few things up here :

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Repair ... &id=794500

I believe I fall into the "Third Causes" category and used the solution which followed; of-coarse, that was after the aforementioned Windows XP recovery console with the commands of FIXMBR/BOOTFIX/etc.. attempts and the complete re-format of the C: partition with a re-install of windows XP via a External CD/DVD drive with my own copy of Windows XP Home. I have a fair amount of knowledge about PC's and windows, but this D2D and Acer PQSERVICE partition ( including the files and processes contained within it ) are a bit new to me.

 

[aaronouthier]

Install the Chameleon boot loader onto an external disk. Eg., an SD card, or a Memory Stick, or use a USB Flash drive. Format the disk fat32, and then extract the archive using 7-zip/winRar/izArc/etc. Be sure to read the readme file!! Then boot from the external drive that you just made. It should be able to see the recovery partition and allow you to boot from it. Use the latest version of Chameleon available.

http://chameleon.osx86.hu/

I suppose you /COULD/ install to your internal hard drive, if you're brave enough...

 

[aaronouthier]

Sorry, I didn't realize that the chameleon boot-loader needs a working OSX86 partition work.

I had discovered this while trying to get OSX86 going on my Acer Aspire One. I had used an external CD-RW drive and something called NetBookBootMaker CD. I was rather surprised to discover that I could both see and and access/boot the recovery partition.

In short, if you have access to a USB CD or DVD drive, you can burn a copy of the freely available CD ISO image.

You could also try a boot-loader called Smart Boot Manager.

HTH.

--Aaron