Help the PQSERVICE partition on my Aspire 5633 is corrupt

[clyde barrow]

Hi,
I am wondering if anyone out there can help. I need an image of the information in the PQSERVICE partition of an Aspire 5633 or similar laptop, some files in mine have become corrupted and the restore fails when I try to use it, My operating system is Vista Premium.

I would be happy to send a cd-r or dvd-r to anyone who could help.

Thanks in advance


I have just been informed that this needs to be a image of the PQService drive only, recovery disks will not do as they lack the mbrwrdos.exe and rtmbr.bin service files to restore the Acer Master Boot Record.

thanks

[kiriakost]

Are Vista the original OS that came with this laptop ??

[clyde barrow]

yes my laptop originaly came with vista premium installed, but I now need to do a system recovery but the files in the PQservice partition are corrupted and the recovery did not complete, as a interim measure I have loaded XP Pro unde a 60 day trial licence onto the C partition so I can still use it until I can get an image of the Vista Premium PQService partition.

thanks

I can lend a copy of Ghost if needed as long as the disk is returned and the person promices to delete it from their system once the job is complete

[bigozone]

have you contacted acer and talked to a supervisor?? they may send you a copy of the recovery dvds for free if you are polite enough... assuming you are under warranty...

[clyde barrow]

Thanks for the suggestion, but because I bought this laptop at PC World (UK) the warranty support for this machine is not being handled by Acer but by 'The Techguys' who subcontract repair services to PC World, all my attempts to contact Acer get a polite brush off and refered back to PC World, The TechGuys at PC World say they can't supply recovery discs and refer me back to Acer. Even without this Acer would only sell me recovery discs (approx £30 or around $55 )to reinstall my C:\ partition and although thats ok, it would leave me a still corrupt PQService partition and no alt-F10 D2D recovery option, Now maybe I'm just being to much of a perfectionist here but if there is some way I could put everything back the way it was when I bought the laptop that would be fantastic hence the reason for asking if anyone who has one of these either in the UK or US could image their PQService partition for me. if anyone is maybe thinking that I have a XP MCE version of this model and I'm trying to get a sneeky Vista upgrade I am happy to supply any evidence they like even a copy of my licence sticker(I will have to cover the last 2 characters for obvious reasons)

thanks

[bigozone]

why not download VISTA IMAGE from microsoft,,

then download all the needed drivers from acer

NEXT, reinstall VISTA using the DVD you burned from the image you
downloaded, and register w/ the KEY on the bottom of the laptop.

and then install the VISTA DRIVERS you can download from support.acer-euro.com

you'll be VERY LUCKY to find anyone who has your model and has the skills to make an image file (especially anyone who will take the time to do it)

if it helps any you can use the RESTORE DISKS FROM ANY ASPIRE 5630 variant, you may be missing a few drivers specific to the 5633, but you can download those.

[clyde barrow]

Thanks Bigozone that may be the way I have to go, though I am sure someone in our technical department at work has a Vista disc I can borrow and use the key on the bottom (I work for another large computer manufacturer unfortunatly not Acer) so deffo plan B if no one can do me a image, for the record this is how it is done,

you will need, a copy of PTEdit32.exe, a no install version of XP (I use ERD Commander 2005), a drive key and some imaging software installed on your system (Norton Ghost etc).

1 boot into your Pre Install environment (XP)
2 insert your drive key with PTEdit32.exe on it during booting (or before)
3 navigate to your drive key
4 run PTEdit32.exe
5 PTEdit32 will show 3 drives one will be considerably smaller than the other two and will have a value of 12 or 27 or such change this value to 07
6 Save and close PTEdit and reboot into your Vista operating system.
7 Enter the start menu and right click on 'computer' and select manage
8 Now select 'Disc Management'
9 You can now access PQService and assign it a drive letter
10 you can now access PQService and can Image or Clone it like any other drive.
11 Go back into the Disc Management screen and remove the assigned drive letter.
now shut down and do 1 to 6 again this time changing the value of the PQService partition back to what it was before.

I don't think its important in this instance but some people may suggest going into the bios and turning of the D2D feature before you start and turning it back on only after you finnish

thats it, so if anyone fancies giving it a go and doing an image for me that would be great otherwise its plan B

thanks

[kiriakost]

Your Plan B will not work .

You will be 100 times better , if you pay for a real Erecovery DVD .

I will not reveal your mistake , as you working for the enemy

[clyde barrow]

hi kiriakost

I am not sure which course of action you suggest will not work, borrowing a disc and using my retail key from the bottom of my laptop would be just the same as if I went out and bought a copy of vista from a shop, ok I would have to download and install all Acers drivers and utilities but at the end it would all be back to normal, of course if I got recovery discs then that would install Acers version of vista with all drivers etc in one go and would defo be the easy option if not the cheepest.

the proceure I listed to access the PQService partition and to copy it does work (unless I've left something out) as this is what I basicaly did when I downgraded a friends Acer Aspire 9200 (can't remember the exact model but it had a AMD CPU) at christmas, I backed everything up as a precaution in case anything went wrong, Happily all went well and XP Pro was installed with all correct drivers and the PQService partition was not touched (neither was his D:\ partition for that matter) so the image discs of this partition were not needed. So I was able to use PTEdit32 to extract the files from the partition directly to modify the MBR so Alt-F10 would work in case he ever needed to revert to Vista, I did make him some recovery discs but I was sure he would lose them.

I think it says something that even with my staff discount from the other company I still chose to buy Acer.

Thanks

[bigozone]

i may be wrong... but step 5 is incorrect....

you change a partition to type 07 to hide it..... NOT TO UNHIDE IT!!