You can use Acer eRecovery Management software to create recovery media, reinstall Windows without using CDs or DVDs, or just reinstall drivers and applications.Īnd it can be used to restore a system to its last known good configuration which is saved as an image in a hidden partition in the hard disk of the computer system. All Acer desktops and notebooks come preloaded with a recovery partition to allow you to restore the operating system on your computer. I don't want to destroy the ability to do this entirely (which I could by repartitioning the drives to remove the recovery partition) but I would like a way to require a password first, or "break" the recovery system in a way that I can "unbreak" only if I first un-freeze the hard drive in DeepFreeze.What Is Acer eRecovery Management Software?Īcer eRecovery Management, also called Acer eRecovery Manager, is a software provided by the company to help users restore their Acer computers to default factory settings. Of course, a few students have already figured this out and reset a couple machines. But if you then click through the menu to reset the machine (we're now past the point of curiosity and on to intent) it will wipe the hard drive and restore it to the original state. This by itself is no big deal - you can still power cycle with no impact. This puts them into the "Acer eRecovery" mode. The problem is that even with the bios locked and set to only boot from the hard drive, these Acers still have a simple way to choose a different boot source: shut them down and put a paper click in a little hole at the top while you turn it on again. It lets me give students the leeway to do what they want on lab computers without worrying about them breaking something. Anything you do is wiped after the machine restarts. DeepFreeze is an amazing product - as long as you boot from the frozen hard drive, there is no way to actually make permanent changes to that hard drive. Therefore, I've taken steps to lock them down - namely DeepFreeze and a bios password to prevent booting from anywhere but the frozen hard drive. Unfortunately, I don't currently have the ability to easily image these machines, and even if I did I would want to avoid downtime even while an image is restored. All in all it's several hours work to fully set up one machine. A lot work went into setting up this lab to work well - for example, Office 2007 and other programs needed by the students were installed, all windows updates are applied, and a default desktop is setup. I have a set of new Acer Veriton n260g machines in a computer lab. The meat of this question is that I'm looking for a way to either require a password before using a recovery partition or "break" the recovery partition (specifically, Acer eRecovery) in a way that I can later "unbreak" only by booting normally into windows first.
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