Need restoration help

A colleague at work asked me for help with restoring his daughter's Aspire One. I agreed as I've got a USB DVD reader/writer and thought it'd be easy to reinstall Windows XP. As we had a unused XP licence at work I thought it'd be a piece of cake.

Unfortunately it wasn't so. The Aspire wouldn't take the XP. On closer examination I also found out that the Aspire declined to load the Acer eRecovery Management tool. Instead I got the regular Windows warning ... and a offer to notify Microsoft about it.

Incidently, the first sign that something is wrong supposedly arrived after the computer came up with the warning: "Event Monitor User Notification have a problem and must close", also with the standard Windows warning.

As it appears that I reached a dead end - and have no previous experince with Acer Aspire - I hope you'll excuse my ignorance when I ask these questions:

1) Is there a shortcut/ key to access system recovery/ restoration of the factory settings?
2) Is there a way to install Windows XP from a CD/ DVD, maybe at boot-up (after having changed the boot settings in F2?
3) A way that the Aspire can be saved?

I'd appreciate all the help and guidance Ican get. Simple walk-throughs and guidings hands are very helpful.

In advance THANK YOU very much!

- Boiling

 

First off, what model is the AAO? (it'll be written on a sticker underneath the laptop) Some models come with an SSD instead of a HDD, if this one has an SSD it could have developed a fault.

Secondly, yes there should be a system recovery option at boot-time, usually ALT+F10 to start the recovery process.

Third, yes you can boot from external media after changing the boot options after pressing F2 to access the BIOS.

There should also be a legitamate Windows XP Product key on a sticker under the netbook. If you wish to simply reinstal (repair-install) Windows XP you shouldn't have any problems booting the disk and repair-installing so long as the edition of XP you have matches the XP code.

 

Thanks a lot for your helping hands ...and head.
The ALT+F10-option did the trick ...and I'm considered a genius at work!
- Boiling

 

No probs, glad to hear its all sorted