Restoring Aser Aspire from disk image.

j52c · 26-09-2011, 07:36

My grandaughter has a Acer Aspire and suddenly a lot of the apps have stopped running, ie, when you open Windows Explorer you get an message "Cannot find exlorer.exe", this happens with quitea few other apps. I downloaded a file and when I used Run to install, it said it could noy find the downloaded file.

I tried using the Acer management tol to restore Vista from the hidded partition, but that would not run, again could not find the .exe

Anyone any ideas how I could restore Vista, otherwise it looks as though I am going to have to put my spare XP OS onto it, don't want to do that because it means I have to go and find all the drivers for it. I don't have a Vista setp disk.

Any help would be appreciated.

DaiNasty · 26-09-2011, 09:22

Possibly a virus infection that has modified the 'exe' run parameters.
If you can clean the system first it may be possible to repair afterwards.

Try burning and booting from a rescue disk such as this:

http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208282173

That will scan the system and clean any virus traces that it finds. After that it should be possible to do repair work on the system.

Let us know how you get on.

j52c · 26-09-2011, 11:19

Thanks for the link, I have been searching for something like that. I downloaded the iso and burnt it to a disk, then I will try it, if It doesn't work I have discovered that if you hit Alt/F10 at bootup it takes you to the Acer Resore page, don't want to go down that route for obvious reasons, she had the pc setup to how she likes it.

Will let you know.

j52c · 27-09-2011, 08:20

I finished up by using the Alt/F10 keys at boot up, it only took 10 minutes and the laptop was back to the day she bought it. The only downside doing it that way is you have to start from scratch and the worst part is catching up with Windows Update, this time though when that is done I am going to keep an image backup on my own Nas Drive, then she will have to bring the laptop to me to restore it.

I am going to keep the Kaspersky boot disk just in case, her pc was beyond using it this time.

Thanks for the help.

DaiNasty · 27-09-2011, 09:28

Definitely worth keeping for a while although you may be best advised to save a link to the Kaspersky web page as they update the iso file regularly to deal with new viruses.

I've got a few clients where I keep a disk image at home or concealed on their systems where disk space permits. Machines that are used by the younger members of a family seem to be particularly at risk. Oddly enough my 'silver surfers' rarely seem to pick up infections.