[hip999]

Myself and my partner each have an Acer Aspire 5741Z; both about 18 months old. Hers is 3Gb memory and mine is 4Gb.

Hers has always run with a noisy fan. I did point this out by e-mail to the sellers saveonlaptops.com but they never made the effort to reply.

Hers crashes very often .... sometimes within 5 minutes of restart; sometimes it will last a few hours. I assume the only solution is to re-install the OS - but I never made the recovery discs for hers as it took me so long to do mine I was fed up with it. As mine had a higher memory, can i use my recovery discs in her, otherwise identical, laptop?

My laptop recently started to have problems loading Windows 7 on start up and often had to do an automatic repair. Then it went completely ... and the automatic recovery process started. It first saved all my main data to a partition of the HD (but I notice it stopped doing it after about 30%) and then started to re-install windows .... but then said "Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation" .... but it gave no means to restart it.

I had recently backed up much of my data to an external HD but i think there may be some photos I missed. i do not want to re-install Windows using the recovery discs as i assume it will wipe the entire HD, including the partition where my data was stored automatically for me. Are there any ways to recover my data on the HD? One solution I thought of is to use my laptop as an external HD to my partner's laptop; is that possible if my laptop has no OS?

I know i could remove my HDD and put it in an external caddy but my laptop is under an extended warranty and I am sure that will invalidate it. And i am not confident to remove and replace the HDD.

Any answers or suggestions please?

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See this tutorial by theog on How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista for a neat trick to use to allow you to Copy & Paste from the Recovery Console to save files and folders.

Since you do not have a Windows 7 installation DVD, you can download a legal copy with SP1 integrated from here: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River.
Make sure you get the same version you have, Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate and 32 or 64 bit. Note that Basic or Starter is not available.

I recommend using ImgBurn at 4X speed (or the slowest available) to create the DVD from the downloaded .iso file.

You can do this on any computer capable of burning a DVD.

For techies or folks who work on computers: Create Windows 7 Universal ISO With All Editions Selection On Install with ei.cfg Removal Utility.
This will fit on a 6GB flash drive or can be burned to a DVD.

Once everything is backed up, use the Recovery Discs you created to restore the computer to it's Factory New state.

You can use the sames discs for the other computer as well since they are identical.

Or ... you can use the Windows 7 DVD created above to do a Clean Install (my choice) but you will lose any applications pre-installed by the manufacturer. This can be a blessing if you don't use any of them as it frees up disc space and system resources, or a curse if you do use some of the pre-installed programs.

Edit: Before you do anything, please post a screen shot of an expanded Disk Management window.

To open Disk Management, press Windows key+r, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter or click GO. Make it full screen.

Vista and Windows 7: How to Use the Snipping Tool in Vista - Vista Forums (says it's for Vista but also works with Win 7).

Use the Browse and Attach This File buttons below the text input area while using the Full editor to upload and insert here.

[Ztruker]

See this tutorial by theog on How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista for a neat trick to use to allow you to Copy & Paste from the Recovery Console to save files and folders.

Since you do not have a Windows 7 installation DVD, you can download a legal copy with SP1 integrated from here: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River.
Make sure you get the same version you have, Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate and 32 or 64 bit. Note that Basic or Starter is not available.

I recommend using ImgBurn at 4X speed (or the slowest available) to create the DVD from the downloaded .iso file.

You can do this on any computer capable of burning a DVD.

For techies or folks who work on computers: Create Windows 7 Universal ISO With All Editions Selection On Install with ei.cfg Removal Utility.
This will fit on a 6GB flash drive or can be burned to a DVD.

Once everything is backed up, use the Recovery Discs you created to restore the computer to it's Factory New state.

You can use the sames discs for the other computer as well since they are identical.

Or ... you can use the Windows 7 DVD created above to do a Clean Install (my choice) but you will lose any applications pre-installed by the manufacturer. This can be a blessing if you don't use any of them as it frees up disc space and system resources, or a curse if you do use some of the pre-installed programs.

Edit: Before you do anything, please post a screen shot of an expanded Disk Management window.

To open Disk Management, press Windows key+r, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter or click GO. Make it full screen.

Vista and Windows 7: How to Use the Snipping Tool in Vista - Vista Forums (says it's for Vista but also works with Win 7).

Use the Browse and Attach This File buttons below the text input area while using the Full editor to upload and insert here.

[hip999]

I am stuck at the first hurdle! I made a Windows 7 64-bit SYSTEM REPAIR DISC and then put it in my other computer. I switched it on and I just get the old loop of "not able to complete installation of windows". The first screen which allows me to choose "repair my computer" does not show at all. I started in normal mode and then tried safe mode.
Could my system repair disc be useless?

[hip999]

I now tried the system recovery disc I made when I first bought the computer .... the same thing happens. So I pressed F2 when I first switched on the computer .... but only got into a complicated recovery system which did not work (the Acer eRecovery Management). It says that recovery is complete, asks me to boot from the DVD, but then says it cannot continue installation of Windows and goes back into the loop.

[Ztruker]

Are you still trying to backup your data first? If so did you follow Theog's directions in the link I gave you?

[hip999]

Yes, I did try ... I followed "How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista" but when I switched on my pc with the recovery disc inside the drive, nothing happened. I tried the disc I made following the link in "How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista" and then tried the disc I had made when i first bought the pc. Neither booted to show the screen as in Theog's instructions.

Maybe i just don't know how to boot up correctly.

I may even have lost what was on the HDD ... that would not be a major problem as I am sure I have most of it backed up. So, if you think I have no choice but to do a clean install of Windows 7 then i will go to that process and miss out "How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista".

And thanks so much for the time you spend to help me.

[Ztruker]

Clean install is still going to require you to boot the DVD. According to the Users Guide:



Try the Copy & Paste tutorial again if the above will now boot the DVD.
Try the recovery discs you created again following the above process once data is backed up.

[hip999]

I tried the instructions with the System REPAIR Disc and the same problems occurred, so I assumed that I had to use the System RECOVERY Discs.

When I inserted Disc 1 and it started to boot, the screen showed the following:

"Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer". It then went on to say that I may have unplugged an external storage device ..... I did NOT do that as none was connected during this process. It also stated the possibility of a hard drive or CD ROM that is failing.

It then gave the following information:

Status: OxcOOOOOe9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred.

So, I am wondering if my HDD has failed, or maybe my DVD drive. This pc is under extended warranty but if I return it and there is not hardware failure then I am sure they will charge me .... so is there any way I can be sure it is not the RECOVERY DISCS (these were made by myself when I purchased the computer and I had no way to be certain they were correctly created at the time)?

[Ztruker]

Everything I can find about that error indicates a hard drive failure.

You could check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics

You have to know what make hard drive to use the right tool.