You could say, manufacturers should not begrudge the customer the dollar or so that it would have cost to include the recovery disks, the way they used to.

lol, I agree. I remember when M$ REQUIRED the OS disks to be shipped with every computer which had Windows installed. Ahhh the good ol days.

I believe HP started this recovery partition mess. I was part of a class action law suit that was lost by HP way back when. Because they had not revealed the hidden recovery partition and the stated hard drive space was not available everyone got a free set of system recovery disks. They made it clear after that concerning the recovery partition and available disk space. Although I can't remember seeing the info stated anywhere lately Course, I never bought another HP anyway . . . =)

BTW, they didn't even offer the option to create the disks back then, if your hard drive crashed you had to order a set, we all know how that worked out =D

System Restore is not just a bandaid over OS issues. It is a lifesaver when you yourself have made a Charlie Foxtrot of a driver or the registry.

It's something only power users really need, but editing the registry or installing a driver without a restore point is skydiving without a backup chute.

Just burned the recovery discs, but when i reboot the system it doesn't boot the DVD, just starts windows normally and dumpd me back to the Software Installation thing.

I tried bringing up the advanced boot options, but all that gives me are options to start windows normally or in safe mode.

Somehow the system got out or past the Software Installation thing and is now functioning, from what i can tell, normally. Should i still do the recovery thing?

I would double click My computer, right click the C drive, click Properties, click the Tools tab and under Error-checking click the check now button. Check both options, it will tell you it cannot do the check while files are in use "Would you like to schedule a disk check?" Click Yes and reboot. As it boots it will say you have scheduled a disk check, allow it to do so. A full check will take up to an hour or more depending on your hard drive size. Allow it to finish and especially don't turn it off during the check. If it finds / fixes any errors or finds none . . . I would use it for a few days, no problems??? I would not restore the system. Step by step can be found here

You would need to go into BIOS and set the DVD drive as the first boot drive. Some systems detect a bootable disk and prompt you as to which drive you want to boot from. In any event, the manufacturers system restore is a last resort option in my opinion so . . . I don't use it if I can get into windows for diagnostics, AV scans, malware scans etc etc.

If you do have to restore check items 5 and 6 here as this is easier than going into the BIOS to set the DVD as the primary boot drive. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a last resort fix. The ONLY time I do this is when I absolutely cannot get into windows.

Edit: I believe you have dodged the proverbial bullet . . . =)

Yup, i'll post back when i run that scan tomorrow and see what turns up.

Thanks a lot for the help.

For those wondering, i was trying to use a keygen for Sacred 2's expansion and look what that got me?
Why was i even using that thing on the system that the game is not even installed in? yeah, good question *bangs head against the nearest wall a couple of times*.

>.<

Any idea how to get into the BIOS of my system? it's an eMachines E528. I've tried some F keys, but they only take me to the Advanced Boot Options menu and there's nothing there that you can use to setup the boot device.

ESC + F2 + DEL did it. Loading the recovery thing now.

After skimming through the system last night, i just turned it off because i didn't have time to check it out extensively, so when i turned it on earlier to do the disc check, it dumped me back to the Software Installation screen.

Just did the recovery, same BSoD and stuck at the software installation part.

*bump*

Anyone? :)

Other than making sure your internal connections are tight . . . I am out of suggestions at the moment. Would like to get hold of it as it is an intriguing problem.

I find it odd that the manufacturers system restore disk does not run. As the last resort you may have to do a destructive restore to bring it back on-line. If you have no backups you would lose all data. If there is critical data on the hard drive you might be able to pull it out and add it to another computer, pull the data (if the drive has not been damaged) and burn it to a DVD for restoration. You might also put it in an external enclosure for access and buy a newer, larger hard drive to run your eMachine system restore on. This is assuming you have no hardware failures which . . . from what I understand caused the problem . . . you should not have any failures IMHO.

Can you still go into save mode? What is the BSoD error number?

Errr, try contacting the manufactuer, you may have to reinstall the OS, I really dunno, it might help to have a have VM to do stuff like Keygens and stuff like that. Hope that helps,
I'm not very good at PC repair, I'm just trying :)
~Noah

The recovery disc does run, i did the disc recovery using the DVDs i burned yesterday. The problem is that it didn't really help, beyond this time just leaving me stuck at the software installation screen and every time i try getting in on Safe Mode, it tells me that windows can't do the setup thing on safe mode and then reboots and starts normally.

I can provide info on the BSoD, but can you tell me what i'm looking for exactly? lots of stuff on there, i'll also have to disable the system from restarting when a critical error happens via the BIOS, no way i can get much info from the 5 or 10 seconds the BSoD lasts before the system reboots.