the_guy Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Hey guys,I purchased an Acer laptop last week and, to my surprise, it didn't include any discs. I have tried emailing Acer for the disc and they've put me in circles, trying to tell me that the Vista disc is the recovery disc that includes all of the crap that came with the computer.Does Microsoft sell discs or do I need to keep hounding Acer until they relent? Any help would be appreciated, especially from those who've had this problem and got the disc.the_guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrf2027 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Unlike past versions of Windows, every version and flavor of Vista (retail, OEM, upgrade) can be installed from one installation disk. The product key alone differentiates the various versions.Therefore, you can find any clean Vista installation disk (try to find SP1) and your OEM product key will work to reinstall the same version of Vista that came with your computer.Also - I think Acer has OEM branding and activation - you can use orev's activation backup and restore program (find it here) to backup your activation and restore it if you decide to do a clean installation. The guide looks long, but it's actually quite simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripredacus Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 OEMs get a few options when they sell an OS. Technically, it is not required for an OEM to provide recovery media, its just a nice thing to do. But in your case, Acer probably put the recovery software in a hidden partition on the drive that you *might* be able to run from Windows (not access tho) or press a key at boot to do a recovery. When I worked for Sony, the VAIOs were slowly going to this method of not providing a recovery CD because it became cost prohibitive, since drive images couldn't fit on a CD anymore. And at least then, DVDs weren't all that cheap compared to CDs. So they put a hidden partition on your hard drive that you can run a recovery from. It is possible to get recovery media from the OEM but if they don't seem to be cooperating it may be because they a) don't have enough to just give them out to everyone or B) they didn't make any and c) they tell their support reps to not give out the media because they probably want to get away from that practice. It is similar to the switchover from paper manuals for PC parts to manuals on CD-ROMs... which is really annoying (especially if its a motherboard manual and your computer won't turn on) but its a business move and you just gotta live with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 Does Microsoft sell discs or do I need to keep hounding Acer until they relent?Acer sells their recovery discs for most models, here you have a link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_guy Posted April 22, 2008 Author Share Posted April 22, 2008 I tried looking at that but that is the way toget their recovery Cd's, complete with Norton crap and the acer utilities that I don't want.I managed to get a disc from someone.the_guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted April 22, 2008 Share Posted April 22, 2008 I was about to suggest that - you beat me to it . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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