Grub Rescue error taken over

10Gb PQSEVICE is the Acer eRecovery factory restore to original system and factory setup (possibly XP).

It didn't work earlier, but it might be worthwhile to try system recovery again if no boot option appears at boot. Unless of course you are happy with Suse Adasha, or Terry knows a way to activate and get into the Windows OS with Suse (?).

System eRecovery process if required:

1. Restart the computer.
2. When the Acer logo appears on the screen, press the left Alt, and the F10 keys at the same time.
3. If you are prompted with a Microsoft Windows boot screen, press the Enter key.
4. After the Acer eRecovery Management application has loaded, select your restore type.
5. Read the notice, and then click Next when you are ready.
6. Click Next to begin the restore process. The restore can take anywhere from 10 minutes up to an hour.
7. Once the restore is complete your computer will reboot.

Cheers,
Lee

It didn't work earlier, but it might be worthwhile to try system recovery again if no boot option appears at boot.

worth another shot, but i doubt it'll work.

the reason why is that the mbr was changed from original sometime in the past, so no longer points to where the restore software is.
to get the Alt+F10 option working again we need to either make the restore partition the boot partition and hope it runs the restore software or more likely find and write the correct mbr file on that partition to the mbr directly,
trial and error comes in here tho because there may be more than 1 mbr file on the partition and we may need to create either just a single partition or 2 partitions for the restore image to work as well.

10Gb PQSEVICE is the Acer eRecovery factory restore to original system and factory setup (possibly XP).

yes i agree xp was probably on there because the only way i could install a win 7 os with her partitions was to do an upgrade of an older win os, otherwise win7 just creates a 100mb system(boot) partition.

the next steps i was thinking are.
1:- pray with fingers crossed the windows os is now listed in suse's boot options and works.. (even tho i believe there is a big 20GB+ of unused space on the hard drive between sda2 and sda3 at the moment, which i was going to get rid of but i suppose could always expand the windows os to use later.)
2:- pray with fingers crossed adasha is happy using suse and doesn't want windows any more.
3:- try fixing the win7 os with a download disk and a repair install then fix the suse install.
4:- pray with fingers crossed adasha is happy using suse and doesn't want windows any more.
5:- try the boot restore partition directly option.
6:- pray with fingers crossed adasha is happy using suse and doesn't want windows any more.
7:- last but not least go the trial and error route and put the correct mbr back which will restore to an as new condition and get the Alt+F10 option working as well. (this one i said i'd need the netbook in front of me to do. )

most of these options will break the suse install now working, but that's no problem because it can always be fixed or re-installed.
and the last 2 (5+7) will destroy the win7 os on there so there'd be no chance of getting that working again without buying a new win7 cd with key.

so what do you think lee, anything obvious i'm missing and do you want to take over for option 3 (the next real step.) with your greater windows knowledge?

so what do you think lee, anything obvious I'm missing and do you want to take over for option 3 (the next real step.) with your greater windows knowledge?

I'd say for the W7 was more than likely a hack install (incentive to buy), especially as any idiot can download a W7 iso and an activation hack from a warez site. As soon as W7 starts to update, W7 doesn't last long and is blocked from working by microsoft. I'm guessing it was probably the cause of all the trouble to begin with and as W7 is not suitable for this netbook anyway, it might be worth a try to get the original XP OS back, as for sure it will be the iso in the recovery partition.

I didn't have an option to boot into anything. It just goes into suse.

ok sounds like a plan to skip trying to get win7 working again then, and to be honest like you said earlier the hardware in a netbook isn't really up to running win7 so it would be slow and frustrating to use anyway. it's up to you adasha if your happy using what's installed for the moment or want to continue and see if we can get windows xp up and running either on it's own or alongside suse. we still need to confirm xp is on the restore partition yet tho.

sorry missed your post adasha, you don't have any boot options at all? it should show at least 2 for a few seconds before starting suse.

If you are sure there is no boot option like you say, try to boot into the original OS that should be windows XP.

1. Restart the computer.
2. When the Acer logo appears on the screen, press the left Alt, and the F10 keys at the same time.
3. If you are prompted with a Microsoft Windows boot screen, press the Enter key.
4. After the Acer eRecovery Management application has loaded, select your restore type.
5. Read the notice, and then click Next when you are ready.
6. Click Next to begin the restore process. The restore can take anywhere from 10 minutes up to an hour.
7. Once the restore is complete your computer will reboot.

I've been following this thread and have a suggestion. Since the recovery (PQSEVICE) partition is still there, why not try making it the only active partition.

Then when you boot the Recovery process should start.

This has worked for me on several different computers where the Fn key to start recovery did not work.

I don't know how you make a partition Active and make any others inactive using Linux. Also not sure if GRUB will get in the way, but thought it was worth mentioning.

I normally boot a Windows 7 install DVD or flash drive then take the Repair Option to get to a Command Prompt and use diskpart to handle active/inactive settings.

If all else fails, a Windows 7 .iso could be downloaded and a bootable flash drive built to install Windows 7 from as long as a valid Windows 7 key is available.

Windows 7 Direct Download Links

Make sure you get the same version you have, Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate and 32 or 64 bit. Note that Basic or Starter is not available.

I recommend using ImgBurn at 4X speed (or the slowest available) to create the DVD from the downloaded .iso file.

You can do this on any computer capable of burning a DVD.

YOU MUST HAVE A VALID KEY TO INSTALL THIS .ISO. The one on the COA sticker on your computer will work.

You can also create a bootable USB Flash drive (4GB or larger) to install Windows 7 from.

• Download and run Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3
• Select Windows 7 from the first drop down list, all the way to the bottom
• Select the downloaded Windows 7 iso file
• Select your USB flash drive
• Click Create

For techies or folks who work on computers: Create Windows 7 Universal ISO With All Editions Selection On Install with ei.cfg Removal Utility.
This will fit on a 6GB flash drive or can be burned to a DVD.

I've been following this thread and have a suggestion. Since the recovery (PQSEVICE) partition is still there, why not try making it the only active partition.

Then when you boot the Recovery process should start.

Sounds like a good plan if Terry knows how to do that in Linux, but GRUB could be a problem (?)

I'd like to see the eRecovery steps tried out first, as will we could be straight into windows if it works.

If all else fails, a Windows 7 .iso could be downloaded and a bootable flash drive built to install Windows 7 from as long as a valid Windows 7 key is available.

No valid key is available.

Okay, I got to this: 4. After the Acer eRecovery Management application has loaded, select your restore type. 5. Read the notice, and then click Next when you are ready. But last time I did this and must have picked the wrong option because this is how I got here to begin with.

What option did you pick?

I can't recall, but it must have been the first one, to recover to factory settings. I did get a windows recovery option and it said setting up computer, then said it can't complete with current hardware.

I just checked the Acer site and there are four options.

Plug in the AC adapter and battery.
Turn the system on
Immediately, press ALT on the keyboard and start tapping F10.
Continue holding ALT and tapping F10 as the unit boots up.
A screen stating "Starting Acer Erecovery" should appear.
(Release ALT and stop tapping F10 at this point)
There will be 4 options:
1. Restore system to factory default
2. Restore system from user backup
3. Restore system from cd/dvd
4. Exit

Number 1 is the correct option.

Sorry I was typing my last reply when you replied. OK, if you selected 1, lets not go down that path again. We can wait for Terry's input to Ztruker's suggestion.

The first was restore to factory settings. The second is restore operating system and save data to backup file.