So I'm trying to reinstall Windows 7 on this Acer Aspire X5900 machine. When I booted the OS, it has an error so like any other eMachines, I just hit the Alt+F10 keys to get into the recovery partition. It reaches a screen saying "Please Wait a Moment..." and just freezes there.

Any solutions or ideas? It's also out of warranty so don't even bother telling me to call tech support. Heck, even their tech support needs tech support too.

I did pull the whole unit apart and found out that the current drive's a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB drive (WD10EADS) which was manufactured 2 years ago, so it could be a HDD failure.

So where should I go from here? Help?

I'll put up screenshots if you guys need.

 

Are you booting from a usb or cd?
Are you going for a clean install?

 

It's booting from a recovery partition on the same drive.

If possible, I would like to restore the whole system back to it's factory default. As if it was just taken out of the box.

 

Some computers have the 2 options of how to get into recovery mode.
The first method is to go into the boot meny when the computer start and there you should have an option to boot into recovery mode. I think you have already tried this method.
The second method is that you choose repair your computer option from the f8 boot menu.

You could try to do a clean install if you have a bootable cd/usb or maybe try this from acers website-> https://store.acer.com/store?Action=DisplayDataValidationServicePage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=acerna

 

I wouldn't want to spend more money to get a bootable CD, it's just meaningless. As for the F8 option, I'll give it a go tommorow.

 

One more thing if that doesn't work, try this.
1. Right click on the computer icon and click on manage.
2. Click on "Disc Management"
3. Right click on the recovery disc and mark it as "Active"/"Mark partition as active"

This should launch the computer right into recovery mode when you restart the computer.

You should try Ubuntu then. 

 

Yeah, right now I'm running a barebone Window Vista Ultimate on a 500GB drive. It works, but barely. And this computer can only have 1 SATA hard drive at a time so there's a challenge. I'm downloading Ubuntu as I type. Gonna see if I can wipe the hard drive from Ubuntu. But for now, I need some sleep.

 

Was this the original hdd that came with the machine?

 

Yeah. It's the original drive. A Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB (WD10EADS) Drive.

 

Are you able to boot into anything with that HDD on the original hardware?

 

Nope. If I'm lucky, I get an error message while booting the OS. But most of the time, it's a black screen.

 

Ok so from what I gather is that this PC already had Windows 7 on it, it isn't working and you want to reinstall it using the recovery partition?

Do you have a Windows 7 installation DVD?

 

This PC didn't come with any disks or DVD of any sort. But I've read online that you can use the recovery partition to restore Windows.

 

Right, you're supposed to make the recovery DVD using the eRecovery when you get the system. There is usually a first-run notification that 99% of people ignore...

Anyways, if you are just going to format the drive and install Ubuntu, not sure what help I can be. If you decide you want to attempt to get back into that system without giving up on it (and potentially learn something) you can let me know via PM.  

 

Yeah, and now I'm regretting it.

I'm not giving up on the system, it's a Window 7 OS. I just wanna know how to restore the drive without having to buy a recovery CD or a new HDD. My last resort is to entirely wipe the hard drive clean and install Windows Vista.

However, I have to get back to you tommorow because it's really late here and I ought to be getting some sleep.

 

Alright, I'm back with pictures this time.



I get this screen when I just normally boot the OS.



When I repeatedly press Alt+F10, this screen appears and starts loading.



I will then come to this screen which just stays there for hours.



This is the Hard Drive that came with the system. Don't bother checking the Western Digital Website with the serial number, I already did that.



The SATA ports if anyone need the back view.

 

Download UBCD and test your hdd aswell as your ram

Ultimate Boot CD - Download the UBCD

If it has no issues then check out one of the many torrent sites and download an iso of the version of windows 7 you have a license for and attempt a reinstallation.

 

I used Memtest86 to test out the RAM (Since I had one lying around), it came back ok. But I tested out the HDD with Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test, it came back with LOTS of bad sectors. So it really was a dead HDD after all. I swapped it with my Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM HDD and installed a fresh copy of Windows Vista and also downloaded the Drivers from Acer. Too bad I can't RMA the HDD tho...

 

Glad you got it sorted out!

 

But can I fix the bad sectors on the HDD? If so, I might use it as an extra storage.