How to restore 5100 acer lap top to factory settings. Hard drive is wiped out.

You may have to restore your machine to Factory Settings. If you have files that you do not want to lose, you could try this... Pull the hard drive out, and use a "USB Hard Drive Adapter" to connect the hard drive to a friend's computer, and save all the personal files (documents, pictures, etc.) you can to a folder on the friend's computer or an external hard drive.
Then, you could try to do a Factory Restore on the computer, and if that works, copy your personal files back to your newly restored computer. See... http://community.sony.com/t5/VAIO-Software-Other-Operating/Restore-computer-to-factory-settings/td-p/27535

You may need to restore your Acer computer to its factory defaults if a virus damages operating files or if the system begins acting erratically for unknown reasons.
Restoring an Acer to factory defaults returns the computer to its original state when first purchased.

Click on the Start menu.
Then, select all programs, Acer Empowering Technology and Acer eRecovery Management.
If this is the first time you have opened the program it will prompt you to set up a password and create a backup CD.
Click the Restore button and select the option that reads "Restore system to factory defaults".

Wait for the computer to finish the restore process and reboot.
Restoring for the Boot Screen

If your computer will not boot up properly, you can attempt to reach the restore option by pressing the Alt button and the F10 button at the same time.


When the eRecovery menu appears, choose "restore system to factory defaults".

Wait for the recovery process to complete and the computer to restart.

This WEB site shows how to restore your Acer laptop.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/13678-63-restore-acer-aspire-factory-settings

Before performing a restore operation, please check the BIOS settings. To activate the BIOS utility, press F2 during post.

To start the recovery process:

1. Restart the system.
2. While the Acer logo is showing, press <Alt> + <F10> at the same time to enter the recovery process.
3. Refer to onsreen instructions to perform system recovery.
Follow this steps.
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After using Darik's boot and nuke (DBAN) your hard drive will be wiped clean with little chance of recovery. This also depends on how many passes you used for the disk wipe. More passes = less chance of recovery.

Restore from backup
You can restore backups previously created (as stated in the Create backup
section) from hard disk, CD or DVD.
1 Boot to Windows XP.
2 Press <Alt> + <F10> to open the Acer eRecovery Management utility.
3 Enter the password to proceed. The default password is six zeros.
4 In the Acer eRecovery Management window, select Recovery actions and
click Next.
5 Select the desired restore action and follow the onscreen instructions to
complete the restore process.

Here is the standard Acer Recovery Instructions

1. Power on the machine
2. At the white ACER BIOS screen, hold the “Alt” key and press the “F10” key simultaneously to start Acer eRecovery
3. Once eRecovery has loaded, click “Restore to Factory Default Settings”
4. Click “OK” to continue
5. From here, the eRecovery process will update all the data on the C: drive and restore a fully functional factory image (approximately 10 minutes).
6. Once eRecovery has run, press “OK” to reboot unit
From techsupportforum.com

If you created your system restore CDs when you purchased the system, insert your first CD into the CD drive and boot your computer. This will restore your computer to factory settings. ALL DATA WILL BE LOST.

Hello:

If you want to restore your laptop to factory setting: You should insert your "recovery disk to the CD/DVD ROM. and then shutdown the laptop.

Now; boot your laptop using the recovery disk(boot the laptop from CD/DVD rom) This will no need to input the password: its either you have to restore the system without deleting the existing files or you have to partition and format the hard drive. formatting hard drive you will end up with fresh copy of system files. same as first day when you purchase the laptop.

be sure to install the driver if there's any.

However; if you tend to do by supplying the password. iguess all factory installation has no password. you have to strike the enter without supplying any password.

may this help,

melnavz

did you reformat the hard drive first?if not then you needed to ensure that you selected 'repair' first.

From Acer customer support:

1 Ensure all Data is backed up, all data will be deleted.
2 Restart machine
3 When your unit switches back on hold down alt & tap f10 repeatedly...(on Acer icon)
4 Please wait a moment until prompted, -How would you like to restore?-
5 Please select –Restore system to factory default-
6 Enter your defined password or enter six zeros ‘000000’
7 Click ok
8 Please wait until process completed, this will take 45min – 1hour