How can I reinstall Windows7 on an Acer 5336?

icebergx

Hi all,
My dad purchased an Acer Aspire 5336 a couple of years ago, and when I visited him, I noticed how painfully slow it was... It took 10 minutes to boot up and over 2 hours to update yesterday. Even connecting to wifi after bootup takes 5 minutes!
Having done a bit of research, it appears that the laptop didn't actually come with a windows7 DVD, and selecting the "restore operating system and retain user data"option in Acer's e-Recovery Management hasn't made any difference.
There is also an option to "completely restore system to factory defaults," so I wanted to try that, but it's nor clear if this will (or won't) re-install a fresh copy of windows. Non of the current user data needs to be retained.
1) Does anyone know if choosing the factory reset option will or won't re-install windows?
2) If not how can I re-install Windows on this PC??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Stupefied

Yeah the second option will do a 'fresh' install of Windows. I say 'fresh' because it will contain a lot of unnecessary software from Acer. Check how much of this you need and uninstall the rest.

Another way to get a fresh install is to make a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows DVD. I can't post links but it is easy to do if you have a 4GB+ flash drive (and another PC with a DVD drive). Google 'make bootable usb windows 7'. You will probably need to find some drivers, best to have them ready before you start on a separate USB drive. Get them from Acer's website.

icebergx

Stupefied wrote: »

Yeah the second option will do a 'fresh' install of Windows. I say 'fresh' because it will contain a lot of unnecessary software from Acer. Check how much of this you need and uninstall the rest.

Another way to get a fresh install is to make a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows DVD. I can't post links but it is easy to do if you have a 4GB+ flash drive. Google 'make bootable usb windows 7'. You will probably need to find some drivers, best to have them ready before you start on a separate USB drive. Get them from Acer's website.

Thanks for that, Stupefied.
I discovered that a restore to factory setting should indeed re-install windows too... Unfortunately, when I selected that option in windows the computer restarted and presented my with the same options in DOS (restore to factory defaults or Rstore OS and retain user data). Unfortunately neither of these options were actually selectable and the only optiton that could be chosen was "exit," which just reloaded my old windows7 insalation, without any changes whatsoever.

I'm stuck now. Can anyone suggest what to do?
I don't have a windows7 CD/DVD so I don't know if I can created a bootable Win7 USB. Can I?

Thanks in advance.

fenlander_uk

Windows 7 installation disks can still be downloaded. Check this out: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-get-free-legal-copy-windows-7-installation-disk.htm.

I downloaded and burned a W7 Home Premium disk a few days ago. You do, of course, need the W7 serial number from your existing copy of Windows, which should be on a sticker on the base of the machine. Also, as Stupefied stated, you will need to obtain specific drivers for your machine from the manufacturer's website.

icebergx

fenlander_uk wrote: »

Windows 7 installation disks can still be downloaded. Check this out: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-get-free-legal-copy-windows-7-installation-disk.htm.

I downloaded and burned a W7 Home Premium disk a few days ago. You do, of course, need the W7 serial number from your existing copy of Windows, which should be on a sticker on the base of the machine. Also, as Stupefied stated, you will need to obtain specific drivers for your machine from the manufacturer's website.

Great! I'm downloading W7 home premium now and I have the serial number sticker too, so that's all good.
Do I need to to burn the iso onto a DVD/USB? Should I download the drivers before or after I've installed W7 onto the machine?

Thanks

NiftyDigits

icebergx wrote: »

Great! I'm downloading W7 home premium now and I have the serial number sticker too, so that's all good.
Do I need to to burn the iso onto a DVD/USB? Should I download the drivers before or after I've installed W7 onto the machine?

Thanks

Do you actually ever check your Private Messages?

vuvuzela

icebergx wrote: »

Great! I'm downloading W7 home premium now and I have the serial number sticker too, so that's all good.
Do I need to to burn the iso onto a DVD/USB? Should I download the drivers before or after I've installed W7 onto the machine?

Thanks

ISO2USB is a very useful program. Freeware, works excellently. After downloading the ISO, just install and run http://www.isotousb.com/ - you'll need a 4GB USB drive.

vuvuzela

icebergx wrote: »

Great! I'm downloading W7 home premium now and I have the serial number sticker too, so that's all good.
Do I need to to burn the iso onto a DVD/USB? Should I download the drivers before or after I've installed W7 onto the machine?

Thanks

Oh, as for drivers, get the network ones now. Everything else can be downloaded later, but if you don't have the network (wireless and wired, depending on which you use), you'll struggle

icebergx

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Do you actually ever check your Private Messages?

I just did ;-)
Thanks for the incredible information. I'll give it a go. Really appreciate your help.
Thanks again.