Call Acer w/in 90 days for Recovery Discs

wow a usb stick huh, you got a better deal than i did... I got a CD and a DVD, so you got at least a 4GB are you sure she wasn't mistaken and got sent the usb stick meant for a linux aspire one?

 

Oh oh...Now you got me worried...The two files on the stick are:

flashit.exe
ZG51A32.fd

Anyway to tell if these are indeed Windows files? Thanks,

 

You got hosed...lol...

That is a BIOS recovery USB, which could still be handy, but I think you should call them back...

I guess that answers the question of whether BIOS flashing truly does void warranties...

 

So, if I should use the stick, what would I be left with when finished?

 

Theoretically, a new BIOS version 3309, and a free USB thumbdrive.

Or a brick, if the flash goes bad. :shock:

I would just run the BIOS flash from Windows (not would, did). You can download the utility to do it from Acer. Actually, I wouldn't really recommend it if you aren't having BIOS related problems.

You should just call them again and explain what you wanted, versus what you got.

 

You were kind of lied to there Steve. I work at the same call center the Acer reps work at. I do tech support for extended warranties from places like Staples, RadioShack, Home Depot and other smaller companies. The company we work for has call centers for different clients. Their contract with our company will be up in the next week or two, so I'll get the full story on the CDs (90 software warranty and such) tomorrow.

I had only read the last page of this thread while I was still at work and asked one of the guys on the way out about the USB flash drive recovery. Apparently, those are only for people that are experiencing an issue with their BIOS and the video card. Affected models have their screens go out and everything works, but you can't see anything on the screen. So they send you that, you plug it in and hold down two buttons (didn't say which, but I assume the standard acer ctrl+F10) and it flashes your BIOS and fixes the problem. He said that recovery discs are not supposed to be sent out for free, Tomorrow I'll ask a manager about recovery discs

That said I do know that for the account I work in the reps can have stuff sent out sometimes with little oversight. Things do slip through the cracks more than they should. If I had to guess, people that are getting discs after December are just getting reps that missed that memo, or just feel bad for you. They are required to keep the calls under 9 minutes, so they might do it just so you are happy and get off the phone quicker. Regardless I'll get the official word tomorrow on their recovery disc policy and post it here

 

Good to have an insider! There are so many different responses that, as you say, somebody obviously missed memo! We will all look forward to getting the info...Thanks a lot,

Steve

 

Ok I've gotten the free recovery disk problem clarified. Before I say this I want to state a few things, and I'm saying this because I've seen this happen more than once on an internet forum:

I WILL NOT 'talk to a guy' for you to get free recovery disks. Yes they could send you disks, but I'm not going to put someone in that position. I also will not post or respond to posts or PMs about how to 'work the system' for free discs. It's not a lot of money I know, but for that same reason, it shouldn't hurt too bad to just pay for them either. I just can't put anything out here that would jeopardize my job or cause any financial strain on my companies client. If you understand what I say below you should be able to figure out how to do it yourself.

Now that's out of the way, as of right now here's the story on free recovery disks.

If you are within 30 days of purchase and you have a hardware failure or other software problem and cannot recover from the HDD, then they will send you disks for free. They aren't *supposed* to send them to you just because you want them for future use. The manager I spoke to also said that all SSD models come with recovery discs. If yours didn't, that is a valid problem and you should call in and escalate the call until you get them. After the first 30 days of purchase you are required to buy them. When I checked Acer's support site the price for an AOA150 was USD$19.95

But as stated previously and from what we can all see from previous posts, if you get the right person on the phone, you can get them, but there's no way to get or request a specific person. Another misconception I saw posted on this thread is that the recovery discs have some kind of serial number or windows product key assigned to them. THIS IS NOT TRUE. I've never heard of an OEM doing this, and I can promise you 100% that is not the case with Acer recovery discs. I didn't think to ask about the legality of posting images of the discs online. I would think they won't care since it probably save them more money than they make from them, but I will ask about that tomorrow to find out for sure.

If you have any questions about the warranty, I can get straight answers till March 30th when they switch to a call center in India. Even after that though, I've learned how to read warranty terms & conditions very well and could answer questions just based on that too.

 

I wish I had read through all of this. I got surprised by the CSR insisting it was 19.95. I told him the recovery partition was deleted due to a read error on it [well it _was_ deleted :roll: ] That was all he needed to hear to send them to me free of charge. Boy was his accent hard to understand. I'm used to Indian accents but I'm guessing it was African. Whew...glad I understood him well enough.

 

My Rep just told me it was 29.95. I told him no thanks.

Will have to call back during the week to get a level 2 rep to authorize free disks.

 

Had my One for about a month now and wanted a recovery disk. I called the CSR and was on the phone for about 13min and the rep was very kind and spoke very good english. I told him my computer "Crashed" and my erecovery system didn't"Work". He told me he would send out a recovery disc, and I should receive it in 7-10 days. Thanks to this post I have some back up now.

 

Ok i just got off the phone with Acer . That was not as easy as the last call. getting a CD was like pulling teeth this time. she wanted to charge me $20 even though the netbook is less then 3 weeks old at this point and i was calling back on a request i made 2 days after i got it.

She said the the disk are not free, that i must make a recovery DVD. At this point I was a bit irritated because the Recovery DVD you make is just an image of the original system with all the demo bloatware installed. I just wanted a windows CD.

at this point I told her i had done that and i had the dredded 1005 recovery error. at this point she just put me on hold without a word for a few miniutes. When she got back she then started to confirm my address for delivery of the free CD's.

So i was not 100% honest, but, I dont want to have to recover 5 months from now and find out that I can't.

 

Dude, the discs that you will get is the exact same thing that you would make yourself. They will not send you a Windows disc. You won't get that from Acer...you just won't...

You'll get a system disc(s) complete with bloatware...

 

Wonder why Acer just doesn't put an ISO of the recovery discs on their site?...I can't imagine they are selling many $30 disks, and it would sure save them a lot of phone calls...

Steve

 

Anyone tried to ask for recovery disk in Italy for d150x 10''?
I asked and they want 60 €
can anyone or better the forum admins put the recovery disks image online
it would be usefull for a lot

 

Hello..

New to forum .... and just wanted to say ...I got my recovery disks comming in the mail. Jump drive with xp .


I had a problem with bios...So they are sending me a copy to fix problem..


fyi ....still sending out the disks if less then 90 days old

 

Check the jump drive...They sent me one and it is only the bios update...The discs should be fine, but the jump drive is only 1gb and has only the bios, which you may not need...

Steve

 

Apparently this does not work when you purchase a refurbished unit. I've had my AOA150 for less than a week and it is covered under a 90-day warranty from Acer. Acer does not provide free phone support for the purchase of refurbs and wants to charge $2.95/minute for phone support for refurb owners. Needless to say I'm going the email support route to try to get my disks.

My email support exchange with Acer is on its 3rd day and so far they are standing firm in their conviction that they don't provide free recovery disks to refurb purchasers. My last email to them requested an elevation to the next level of support personnel. I'll let you know how it goes.

Has anyone else had any experience with trying to get recovery disks for a refurbished unit?

 

I ordered my CDs today. The system refused to boot after I run Backtrack from my USB key.
I used UBCD to boot from the same USB key and run some tests, the drive is in perfect shape but the partitions (service and primary) are overlapping.

Questions: what do I need in order to do to recover the system? Does this depend on the original Acer service partition ?
Did anybody manage to boot the ISO files for these recovery CDs from an USB key ? I hate to have to buy an external DVD just for this.

 

The recovery discs will restore the HDD to the original factory image, thus fixing the overlapping partitions. I have used a program called unetbootin to put .ISO images on my flash drive. Haven't actually tried with the recovery isos tho. Another thing to try is open the .ISO with winRAR and extract it to the USB drive, that worked perfectly for me with the windows 7 install DVD.