AO150 w/WinXP --> Can I create a recovery CD set?

Called 866.695.2237 and after about a minute and a half of menus and hold time I was talking to a support rep. He took my registration info and gave me an order number, total call was less than 8 minutes. He never tried to talk me out of it or try to tell me about the eRecovery on the hard disk. With tomorrow being Thanksgiving I expect the discs to arrive early next week.

 

My 2 Disk set just got here via Fed Ex and had to sign for it, not bad for a 3 week back order :mrgreen:
Came with these instructions:

 

I have the XP home version of the AAO.

I work with a lot of Acers and was surprised I could not create recovery disks, as most of the machines I work with nag me the first time I log onto them, no matter how long they have been online. Unfortunately I have also had poor results restoring or rebuilding a machine with these home made disks.

I created a test account and plugged in a USB DVD burner, and booted to that account, to no success.

So after reading many of these posts I called 800-818-7860 one evening and to Acer's credit, I was soon speaking to a human, probably in Texas. This person said if there was a need to reinstall the OS, the system must be sent back in to Acer because it was not a customer serviceable computer because it was a net book. There was a concept implied that the hard drive had to be replaced in order for there to be a need to reinstall the OS.

I argued that I often reinstall the OS on the factory hard drive, even if that hard drive is three years old. And since the system documentation stated I should be able to create or receive restore disks.

This went back and forth. then the person put me on hold to talk to their manager, and then came back and remained adamant that no disks would be forthcoming but if I called during 8:30 and 5 Central Time I could get the case elevated (wink wink).

So the next day I called the same number during that time period, got right through to another person, who took my serial number, saw the case record and approved sending me out disks. Success!

so I guess it may matter when you call.

While I had the tech on the line I asked some related questions regarding the ISO file that can be downloaded from Acer's support page. Evidently it is provided to create a bootable CD that formats the hard drive to be fully compatible with the Acer restore disks.

I may install a 7200 RPM drive and and a 1 GB ram one of these days, so I am happy to get the factory disks.

One last thought: too bad that Acer's accounting department cannot bank the recovered liability it records for all those warranties that get voided by upgraders. Maybe they do every time some one orders disks.

 

Recovery discs arrived today (yay! and thx for the info on how to get them!!!) but did anyone else notice that the discs sent are an older revision?

For instance, looking at the RCD.DAT file, the one on the supplied Recovery Disk contains:

It, along with the actual recovery image files, are all dated July 8 08.

Whereas the original RCD.DAT file contained in the hidden recovery partition is newer:

and all the recovery image files are dated Aug 18 08.

So I'm wondering what may be different in the newer files on my HDD compared to the supplied DVD and if I'd encounter any issues using it down the road compared to the HDD. Will probably backup all those files onto a DVD on my own for safe keeping.

Haven't had a chance to examine the System Disk yet but I imagine there may be some revision discrepencies there too.

 

Received the recovery CDs over the weekend (probably on Friday or Saturday, 11/28|11/29 -- we were out of town for the turkey day weekend). Ordered 'em on the evening of 11/24, got 'em 4 or 5 days later (including the Thanksgiving holiday!). Not bad for being on back order. Methinks Acer saying they're on backorder is just to lower expectations.

RLWC

 

Called yesterday, and they agreed to send them to me without any hassle.

 

I have an Acer One 150XP. I got a virus (win32.virutas.fg) which infect all PC exutable (from disk A: to Z:, so also the hidden revovery disk files).
I used free AVG to try to recover form virus. AVG did the work ... in the sense it simply cancelled ALL .exe (more than 5.00 programs, applications and windows .exe and .dll) because non able to clean infected files.

When later, after the disaster, I tried eRecover, it started to do its work, then windows had to reapper I got the windows blue screen and my PC was definitevly death.

I try to get some recovery disk from vendor (MEDIAWORLD chain), but the answer was they did't have any one, I had to call Acer.

So I decided to do all by myself (as I learned after 35 years in IT) :
- to create a DOS bootable USB and reformat everyhing
- to create a windows bootable USB
- to load there a new installation disk with a new XP version
- to reinstall Acer drivers, windfows SP2 from sctratch and reinstall all applications and all new SP.

Not it works fine, but I'm not able to have an emercency recovery disk with ACTUAL XP SP3, ACTUAL divers version and ACTUAL applications (I don't care any more of factory restore capability). I try to find here in the forum a solution but it seems it is not so easy .

I'll continue to look for, any help is welcomed.

Maurizio

 

I just spent almost an hour on the phone with Acer, and it was no-go on getting a free set of recovery discs. I might try calling earlier in the day but I think the ship has sailed. I guess I'll have to pony up for the discs. Unless some kind soul out there who got a free set wouldn't mind providing some iso's to download.

 

The disks arrived yesterday (FedEx!)

 

Any updates on whether or not Acer are still shipping the discs for free?

I just ordered my AAO last night and would like to call Acer and get my free discs as soon as I receive it in the mail...

 

I just tried to get my recovery CDs. Maybe I'm just too polite, but I was told ~$32. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but not the worst news in the world.

Guy on the phone told me the RAM and hard drive are not user replaceable. That was why they were not including the CDs. I'm just quoting here...

Guess I'll pony up the cash. I want to try Ubuntu on this thing, but would hate to lose XP.

 

I am a Taiwanese, as you know, Acer's CEO is also a Taiwanese. In Taiwan, Acer's computers come with recovery DVD(s) and computer cases, sometime they also come with optical mice or LCD cleaning cloths. In the US, I have bought 2 Acer laptops (one is Aspire 5100, and the other is Aspire one AOA150), and they don't come with recovery DVDs and cases.
I had a very bad experience with Acer service today.
I called the number which previous fellows provided to Acer for 5 times, every time I had to wait over 20 minutes
Finally, a male customer representative answered the phone, I told him I purchased the aspire one AOA150-1126 on 12/06/08 and required recovery DVDs. The man told me he is 99.9% sure there is no recovery DVD for Aspire one . I told him I have check this forum and I am sure there are recovery DVDs with Aspire one. He check the information again, and told me there were two options- 1.Copy the data to a USB flash drive by myself. 2. Purchase on the Acer.com (I have check the price on Acer.com, the cost of DVDs are $19.9 and shipping is $10). I told him it never happened in Taiwan and he apologized for the inconvenience ( with insincere attitude :evil: ). He told me the only thing he can do was to take my credit card # and charge me the recovery DVDs fee. I hanged up the phone because I don't want to waste my time...

 

Wow...

I guess I completely missed the boat on this one...

Still waiting for mine to come in the mail. Maybe i'll find some to download. :mrgreen:

 

I am taiwanese as well! but I live in canada, anyways, I phoned acer and they were always nice to me! they agreed to send me a copy of recovery DVD to my doorstep free, and would be delivered in 3 business days. Acer gave me good experience with them, my next laptop or netbook are going to be from them definitely!

 

Hi,

I am happy that you can get the recovery DVDs.
I always support Taiwanese brand, such like Acer, Asus. I am disappointed with Acer America's service.
Maybe they change the direction not to send recovery DVDs for free.
In Taiwanese, the kind of issues Never happened!
I surfed on tigerdirect.com and found the latest model is AOA150-1546 (mine is AOA150-1126), it comes with a USB mouse and a case...
Maybe I should buy it later...

 

I called the number on this thread and eventually got through to Acer customer support.
I was on hold for over 45 minutes at one instance. Total call time 90 minutes. Total talk time to a human person 5 minutes. Total time for right person to say yes we'll send you the cd's : 1 minute.
When I first called, I spoke to a tier 1 support guy that said yeah some acers don't come with recovery cds so he bumped me up to tier 2 support. That took about 30 minutes. That tech told me about every excuse imaginable as to why I wouldn't get any recovery cds... I told him I wanted to speak with his supervisor/manager and he said "Why, he's only going to tell you the same thing." I told him it was none of his business what I'd be talking about with the manager and he said fine and put me on hold. After about 40 minutes he came back on the phone and said he'd escalated it to the Acer Corporate Customer Service. I spoke to the person from that customer service and told him, since I had paid for a Windows XP license, whether I chose to reinstall or not; I needed a copy of the software or the means to download the software that I had paid for. He apologized and asked for my information. He said the discs would be sent. I received them within 2 weeks.

Don't give up on getting those CDs. Don't let the lower support techs tell you no. Request their managers...

__

 

I didn't feel like bothering with calling acer support and trying to get disks. Its the weekend and a holiday week. So I followed the directions a few pages earlier using the downloads from the euro site. Not only was I successful in creating a full recovery dvd, but a drivers and applications cd as well.

I took the plunge and ran them. (I had everything backed up.) Everything came out as if I had ran the recovery partition instead. That also includes the eRecovery program (was defaulted to the one that came with it). All in all, I am happy this works as my first planned upgrade is a 500gb hd.

 

I tried to register my new AO150 on Acer's site, it kept saying my serial number was not valid, so I emailed their customer service they emailed me back and said I needed to call customer service, (I don't remember the number). After the guy got the registration all done he asked if there was any thing else he could do for me, so I asked for the recovery CD's, he said no problem they would go out right away and he gave me a confirmation number. It all seemed pretty simple, although I have not received them yet. It's been about a week ago I called.

 

Ok, here's how I got my Recovery disks from ACER. Called 866-695-2237. I was very polite, explained how I just bought my AA1 3 weeks ago and could not make recovery Disks. Gave "William the CS Guy" my SNID. He then informed me if you request the Disks within 90 days of purchase (Online registration date is taken as truth by ACER) they are free. FEDEX will bring them in about a week!! For those who may be over... lots of begging may work. If you are out of date try registering with a good date... yuh never know.
P.S.
Whole thing took about 10 mins from dial to hang up... Wow

 

Yeah, that's the same number I called and just got mine, took about 8 days.