My acer t690 is shuting down for no reason i think hard drive is going when i buy new 1 can i install and use vista straight away as my pc wont let me burn a copy of the factory default disk wat do i do??????????????????????

2GB max here is your specs for that pc...
Acer Aspire T690 Specs CNET

it looks like sata

Aspire T690 Specifications

Part Number: AspireT690 Aspire T690
Storage CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD/CD-RW Combo, DVD Dual, or DVD Supermulti (varies by model)
Up to 400GB Hard Disk Drive SATA (varies by model)
9 in 1 Card Reader (selected models)

Its normally stored on the hard drive of the PC in the recover partition of the hard disk drive.

If you've formatted the hard drive without burning a recovery disk, you can try contacting ACER via their web site and ask for assistance. You could buy a copy of Window Vista. But if you decided you need to buy a new operating system buy Windows 7 instead, its much better than Vista.

If however you don't want to buy an operating system and be legal. Then you can download and install one of the Linux based operating systems for free. I like Ubuntu best, but there are others.

Just google Linux or go straight for Ubuntu :- http://www.ubuntu.com/

You must download the correct drivers for audio, video, hard drive and mother noard.
Go to Acer.com and there is a menu system that will lead you to them.
Hope this helps

http://us.acer.com/acer/service.do?LanguageISOCtxParam=en&miu10einu24.current.attN2B2F2EEF=3750&sp=page15e&ctx2.c2att1=25&miu10ekcond13.attN2B2F2EEF=3750&CountryISOCtxParam=US&ctx1g.c2att92=453&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=2054404012
heres a link down load on another computer save it to a thumb drive and transfer it to the aspire

A friend of mine had that problem. She contacted Acer and said she did not have a chance to make a backup disk and she needs to re-install the operating system. Within a few days Acer sent her the backup disks.
Just call Acer and ask for it, like she did. If that should not work for you, come back and someone will walk you through to put a copy of your drive on a cd. Hope things work out for you!

You need to get into Bios Setup when the pc first starts.

I am not sure but I think the F2 key lets you into Bios Setup

The primary boot device needs to be the Cdrom drive.

The starting order for the pc needs to be set to
1st Cdrom
2nd HDD

You should then be able to install Vista.

Let me first say that going with XP Pro and not vista is a wise choice. -- try DriverFiles.net

The best way to find out if you need SATA or IDE is to open the case and look. If you have gray cables about one-inch wide with a red line on one side then that is IDE. They are parallel cables. If you have anything else then it is SATA which is a serial cable. I have never been to the Acer Website but I know on Dell, HP, etc. they have a place under support and drivers that you can go. Type in your model number and download the drivers. I don't know if you have another computer to do it, but unfortunately if your restore disk do not work then that is where you will have to go...also see if you can contact someone at Acer and find out why your restore disk do not work. I have wiped my hard drive clean and I was still able to re-install the revovery disk.....Hope this helps.
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Check the Acer web site and make sure U are putting in the correct type of DDR2 ram. Even though they are called DDR2, there are different types, i.e. 5300, 5600, etc.