Acer 5742 Recovery After New HDD Installation

[EclipseTraveler]

My factory HDD has crashed. Very soon after getting "imminent HD failure" it went down. Now windows 7 will not boot and I can barely get into BIOS. Tried the factory reset, but it could not complete. So I'm pretty much convinced its shot. That being said, I've ordered a new HDD as same as the one that came with it from the factory. Like a dummy, I never made a recovery disk. The new HDD is blank. Acer has a eRecovery disk for $20 and it comes specific to the SNID #. It says it will restore programs, drivers, and O/S specific to my computer. My only reservation is that I'm unsure if it will work on a new HDD. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[ohdamnitsbrowen]

You can always try their recovery disk and if it doesn't end up working you can basically do a fresh install and buy a brand new windows 7 installation disk. Doing the latter route, you'd have to locate most of your drivers and install them yourself. If Acer offers this recovery disk for your specific computer, buy that first, and if that fails do the more labor intensive option.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, EclipseTraveler!

Yes, it should work properly on your new HDD. Just because Windows was installed to the dead drive, doesn't mean that you won't be able to use the same installation again on your new one. Operating systems communicate with the motherboard, as long as that is the same, you can use the same old Windows version with the same product key (activation code). Usually, the system should activate automatically once you go online, though. But here's a link to MS that explains how to clean install your Windows version from scratch: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/clean-install
Other than that, there's no reason for the recovery disk sent by your laptop manufacturer not to work!

Either way, if you have any concerns, let us know!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ffg7]

EclipseTraveler, the recovery disk will work with the new drive with no problem as had to do it a few times for customers.