# Solved: acer aspire 5100 system recovery problem



## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

I am trying to restore my system back to factory defaults. I put system disk in drive, restart, press F-12 on splash screen. When it starts to work the computer turns it self off. My running system is windows vista home premium.


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## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

does it ask you to press any key to boot from CD at all 

have alook in bios - should tell you how to get into bios and see what the boot order is - you want CD first

F12 sounds like a partition on the harddrive to restore 

try using Alt F10 seen this as the factory default


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## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

Alt F-10 dosen't work. Instructions for Reloading an Acer Computer. 
1. Insert disk.
2.reboot and press F-12 when splash screen first appears
3.select cdrom or dvd as boot device.
4. when promptedfor recovery disk remove system and insert recovery.

when i press F-12 a window pops up with options 1,3,4.
not sure what option to choose. I'll get back with exact options thanks


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

ALT + F10 when pressed on the Acer log screen should bring up the Acer eRecovery environment. But this feature must be enabled in the BIOS as does the F12 Boot Menu option. Press F2 to get into the BIOS setup and make sure both the F12 Boot Menu and the D2D option is enabled, I think they are under the Boot section.


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## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

Ihave enabled both d2d recovery and F-12 boot. the F-12 goes to a window with option 
1: SATA Toshiba MK 1234GSX-(SI
3: IDE O: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-TION-
4: PCI BEV: Realtek boot agent

is it possible my d2d recovery has been damaged?


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Yes, its possible.

Option 3 from the boot menu is the CD\DVD drive to use with the DVD recovery discs if you have those.

You can try using RIPLinux to boot the Acer Recovery Recovery partition, when you boot from RIP Linux it gives you choices which partition you want to force to boot: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/


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## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

Option 3 starts working says loaing RAMdisk...... gets halfway through then computer shuts itself off.

I downloaded Riplinux. I dont understand how to use it. I now have 4 new shortcuts on my desktop.
1 linux
2 menuxp.1st
3 menu1st
4 grldr

I read the Readme in the linux shortcut, I think its a little to complicated for me. Any help would be grateful.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

You need to download the Bootable ISO image file and burn it to CD, then boot off it. Not sure what you downloaded and how you got those 4 files. This is the exact file you need to download: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/RIPLinuX-7.4.iso


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## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

I downloaded the correct file, burnt it to cd, rebooted, Computer turned itself off while shuting down.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Sounds like its overheating. Have you cleaned out the vents and fans? Do the fans work?


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## micmbj (Jan 10, 2009)

Turns out there was a small cat in the fan. Disconnected fan, cleaned it out
Works a million times better. The Acer erecovery disks worked the first time.
Is there any other usefull tips that you could pass on. Its pretty amazing that something so simple was causing all my problems. Thanks for all your help M.:up:.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Any more advice will cost you 

Its good that you actually made/have the recov ery disks, most people don't and end up stuck when the hard drive fails or when they need to simply reload it.

You can use compressed air to periodically blow any dust from teh heatsink, vents, and fasn to keep it running cool.


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