[squonk]

My uncle is having a problem with his pc. He lives very far away from me and I'm unable to assist him except talking through a phone.

Please help.

his specs are
ACER ASPIRE 9503 EWSMI

Windows XP.

Unable to use recovery disk for some weird reason from windows or alt f2. Any suggestions would be helpful.

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Unable to use recovery disk for some weird reason from windows or alt f2.

He has to boot from recovery CD.

[Broni]

Unable to use recovery disk for some weird reason from windows or alt f2.

He has to boot from recovery CD.

[squonk]

so like shut windows down with the cd in it right?

[doughahn56]

I just restored an Acer from the CD disks at work yesterday. It is notable that the Cd's (2) were spotted with glue from taking them out of the sleeve so I had to clean them both several times with a soft paper towel and glass cleaner. Additionally the CD's were mis-labeled as "1/1" and "1/1" when in reality they were members of a two CD set and should have been labeled 1/2 and 2/2 . ONLY ONE OF THEM IS A BOOT CD so between the glue and the mislabeling it was mostly luck that I was able to complete the reloading process. Hope that helps.

[Broni]

so like shut windows down with the cd in it right?

Yes and BIOS must be set to boot from CD drive, first.
After restart, you should see a message:
Press any key to boot from CD

[squonk]

BIOS is set to boot from cd drive still doesn't boot executable boot disk to reformat hard drive re-install windows xp.

Can't use mouse.

[Broni]

still doesn't boot executable boot disk

What exactly happens after starting computer?
Are you sure, those are disks, which belong to this very particular computer?

[squonk]

It just starts windows normally. If he tries to enter safe mode, it then asks for a password for the administrator as if he's signed on an alt account.

It's like it's not reading the disk from the cd drive. He says kaperspy or kapersky or something like that is trying to access miniport 20-40 and chkdsk is doing something as soon as windows starts as well.

I'm not there to visually see it though, I am playing phone tag and then repeating what he says to me.

I asked if the cd could be damage and the answer was no. I asked if he could try other cds and he said this is the one but sure he did and same thing occurred.

Like I said he has no mouse and is unable to operate the pc once windows starts but from my past experience windows shouldn't be starting when doing a recovery it's just been about 6 years since I've had to re-install windows.

[Broni]

What was the original reason for reinstall?
Acer should have recovery partition.
At Acer logo, press ALT+F10 (desktop), F10 (laptop)

[squonk]

windows still started. Sorry for the delay phone tag. ALT+F10 didn't work according to him.

[Broni]

What was the original reason for reinstall?

[squonk]

He has nothing on his hard drive, and is infected with some viruses already. His mouse doesn't work, so I was just trying to clear everything up without the hassle of using a keyboard. He's pretty much disabled so the quickest and easiest option was just wipe the hard drive clean and start over.

[Broni]

His computer may not have recovery partition.
Can he try recovery CD on another computer to see, if it'll boot?

[squonk]

I will ask him to do that tomorrow he has headed to bed for the night.

[Broni]

No problem