Reinstalling operating system on Acer laptop.

bobhawke

Dog knocked laptop over, hard drive was physically damaged.
Bought a new hard drive, put it in and installed windows from my legitimate CD. Wouldn't accept product key that was on the sticker on bottom of laptop. Contacted acer customer support, the eejit there kept on banging on about a recovery partition etc and couldn't understand that the hard drive was physically broken.
Contacted Microsoft, they were helpful and gave me a new product key to try which didn't work, they said I had to contact Acer.
Emailed acer this time detailing the problem and they said I need to pay £51 for recovery CDs.

I don't want to pay £51 for recovery CD's and I feel I shouldn't have to pay. Is there a way around this?

NiftyDigits

Full model number of machine?

What exactly is your 'legitimate CD'?

jayme1

is this CD you are using the restore DVDs the computer asked you to burn when you first set up the computer ie the Acer Restore DVDs, or is it just a Windows install DVD.

the Acer Restore DVDs shouldn't ask for a product key and are essentially just the HDD restore partition but on DVD for exactly this scenario.

bobhawke

Aspire 5920.

When I say legitimate cd I mean it isn't a pirated copy.
Didn't get option to setup restore DVDs. A seperate partition was on the laptop with the relevant restore stuff but drive was damaged rendering it useless. I ran all the relevant diagnostics tools to repair bad sectors etc

NiftyDigits

bobhawke wrote: »

Aspire 5920.

When I say legitimate cd I mean it isn't a pirated copy.
Didn't get option to setup restore DVDs. A seperate partition was on the laptop with the relevant restore stuff but drive was damaged rendering it useless. I ran all the relevant diagnostics tools to repair bad sectors etc

It is not a pirated copy of what? Can you give the exact name and details of the disc that you have attempted to use? Not the product key of course.
Otherwise we can have little idea of how to guide you using that disc.
Also, which version of Vista is indicated on the COA sticker at the bottom of the laptop?

jayme1

bobhawke wrote: »

Aspire 5920.

When I say legitimate cd I mean it isn't a pirated copy.
Didn't get option to setup restore DVDs. A seperate partition was on the laptop with the relevant restore stuff but drive was damaged rendering it useless. I ran all the relevant diagnostics tools to repair bad sectors etc

yes you did because my computer is an Acer Aspire 5920 too, it is part of the Acer eRecovery utility that comes pinned to the desktop, mine also had pop ups saying burn the DVDs and came with a piece of paper in the box telling me to burn the DVDs as well as telling me to in the manual.

from that utility it allows you to burn the driver disc and the Recovery DVDs (mine took 2 DVDs for the Recovery part) and I have used them several times to restore the computer before I upgraded to Windows 7.
Since you didn't burn the discs Acer do charge you £51 for replacement discs.

To reinstall the OS using Windows discs it has to be the exact version, so if your computer came with Vista Home Premium 32bit then you have to use a Vista Home Premium 32bit DVD and then it should activate aOK, if that is what you are saying is not working then I'm not sure what you can do, esp if you have called Microsoft and a different key also didn't work.

Does the old hard drive not work at all?