Vista Reinstallation ?

I have an Acer 6920G with tons of problems so I wanted to reinstall vista. The thing is that a Vista installation CD didn't come with it, just a CD key on the label. And I didn't create a backup of the system.

In Acer Empowering Technology there's an option called "Restore factory defaults" which didn't work. When I click it, it warns me that all data will be lost and that I have to restart the pc. I click Yes then the notebook restart but nothing happens, it just boot Vista like it usually would.
My question is: is it legal to download Vista and use the CD key on the label?

A few of my problems are
-BSOD when i launch games (sometimes)
-Random music start playing even though I have no music player up, not even in processes. this is the weirdest bug I've ever seen. It starts playing a random song for like 10 seconds then stop.
-Slow system, I just feel like a fresh installation would fix everything.

thanks

 

It is ok to use any Vista DVD (installation or anytime upgrade) to reinstall as long as you use your OEM key. You will have to get drivers online for your Acer...which hopefully Acer has kept up to date. Check the Windows sticky area of the forum for more information concerning this.

 

If you want to do a factory reset of the system, you need to do one of 2 things, burn your backup disks using the erecovery software. The other way is to Press ALT+F10 when the computer is on the ACER screen when it first boots up, this should go into a recovery console.

 

The ALT+F10 didn't bring it into a recovery console. i tried pressing alt+f10 all the way from the second i started it up until it was on the vista logon screen

 

You probably have lost the Acer MBR, which is what lets the ALT+F10 function work. I am assuming that you have not deleted the PQSERVICE partition that was on your hard drive when you purchased it. You can try to recover your Acer MBR, to see if you can get the recovery to work or you can purchase recovery disks from Acer for about $40.

How To Repair The Acer D2D Recovery

 

Is your recovery partition still there on the computer? You can check from Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk management. You should see a 10G partition (about that size) probably in front of your C: drive, on the same physical disk.

If the boot records have been fixed (for example by Vista installation disc performing recovery) that might be a reason why Alt-F10 does not work.

If the recovery partition is there you should be able to burn the recovery disk yourself (using the Acer tools), boot from that DVD and do a restore from there.

 

I see 4 partitions there, one is 13gb, C is 144, D is 137 and the last one 3,5gb. However the first and last one have 100% free space so I doubt there are any recovery files on them.
Question about the recovery discs. I thought when you use them, you restore the system back to how it was when you made the discs. or do you restore factory defaults?

 

It restores to the factory default.

If the first and last partitions say 100% free space that doesn't sound good.

If the recovery partition has in fact been deleted somehow, I think there would be 2 options, 1 would be to buy the backup cd/dvd's from acer, or you could try and find someone with a vista disc and you could re-install the os this way. Whichever way you do it, make sure you backup your personal data first.

 

What about the drivers for the cinedash and webcam?

 

You should be able to get those from here:

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_6920G.html

 

Thanks for answers. For some reason the PQSERVICE only say 28% free space now so maybe it is possible to restore vista?