Hi All, A bit alarmist here IMHO.
Acers logic behind their partitioning is as follows: Three partitions, 1st a hidden partition that contains the factory recovery image and the files required to restore the operating system to factory original. 2nd The C partition with the OS and applications, and 3rd The D partition which is used as a second partition for data storage as well as the target partition when using Acers eRecovery utility to create an image of the C partition to the D partition. Running the utility allows you to image the C drive onto the D drive or partition and allows you to recover that image from D to C should the PC fail to boot and attempts to repair the issue fail. Installing Linux will probably cause the recovery utility to fail however if you create the recovery CD's as suggested by Acer and during the initial boot up and customization recovering the OS back to factory is a simple process. Just boot from the recovery CD and you'll restore the image. If you have two partitions, C and D for example, only the C partition will be rewritten. Data on the D partition will/should remain intact. As far as being out $200.00 ...... If you do as suggested and create the recovery disk in the first place you can restore the system to factory for the price of a DVD and 15 minutes of time. I couldn't get hold of Acer's tech support in a hurry but I doubt that they charge $200.00 for recovery disks. Compaq and IBM charge about $25 - $30 IIRC and I doubt Acer is any different. Concerning wireless.... Intel has a project page on Sourceforge for their various wireless cards with instructions on how to install, where to download all with step-by-step instructions on the procedure. The disk issue is a moot point if you're going to run Linux exclusively but as I said earlier this is hardly a reason to discard a complete product line. Cheers, Dave Watkins President Calgary Linux Users Group W: www.clug.ca E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] V: 403.701.5746 ________________________________________ From: Mitchell Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 5:21 PM To: CLUG General Subject: Re: [clug-talk] laptop recommendations DO NOT GO THE ACER ROUTE. You will have nothing but headaches. Out of the box, my Acer 'top is configured as such 80gb drive Cut into three parts 19(ish)GB for the C: 19(ish)GB for the D: 2(ish)GB for the hidden "Recovery partition" Unless you are willing to completely destroy the hard drive layout, then don't buy it. If you so much as change one byte of the partition table, the recovery partition is garbage, and will no longer restore Windows XP to the C:\. Granted, this is not a problem if you are willing to forgoe with XP altogether - but just know, you will never get it back and will be out $200 odd dollars for the copy of it. Just a word of warning from a fellow Acer'er.
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Watkins;Dave FN:Dave Watkins ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ORG:Calgary Linux Users Group TITLE:President TEL;WORK;VOICE:(403) 701-5746 TEL;CELL;VOICE:(403) 701-5746 TEL;WORK;FAX:(403) 698-9444 ADR;WORK:;;1025 Fonda Court SE;Calgary;Alberta;T2A5S1;Canada LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:1025 Fonda Court SE=0D=0ACalgary, Alberta T2A5S1=0D=0ACanada URL;WORK:http://www.clug.ca EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] REV:20060424T154643Z END:VCARD
_______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
