That sounds like "correct disc image" to me, which would mean it's asking for a Windows installation DVD to source the files to restore from.

Do you have a recovery partition? This might help: Acer Support - Answers, E-Mail, Chat - Using Recovery Management outside of Windows

Barking up the wrong tree...
 

Guys Hi...
Ive just been talking to my wife who lives in the UK about my computer problem and during the course of the conversation she made the comment "By the way, have you seen anything of the recovery discs for my Netbook... my Acer Aspire 1, XP driven, Netbook..."

It seems when she bought it, in England, the guys at the shop asked her what OS she wanted on it when she said XP the guys installed it for her and handed her two shop produced recovery DVD's marked in felt tip pen "Recovery Disc 1" and "Recovery Disc 2" They told her that in order to use them she would have to buy an external DVD drive because the Aspire Netbook doesn't have a built-in DVD drive.

I had completely forgotten about her netbook... it would appear that the disc I have been using is probably the one for her Netbook, her XP netbook... so it's no wonder my machine keeps asking for the 'correct' image disc. There is another clue which she pointed out to me... "a recovery disc produced in Spain by a Spanish retailer, would not have 'Recovery Disc' written on it in English..."

It seems I have been barking up the wrong tree... so forget any reference to me having recovery discs for the darn tower... I haven't...

I am waiting to hear back from Acer-Europe about the availability of the correct recovery discs for a Vista driven Aspire M1600.

Acer USA, at acer.com says that the discs are not available for the SNID number I quoted, but its highly probable that the M1600 wasn't sold in the USA.

I will not do anything else to try to recover the situation, until I hear back from them. It would be a great pity to lose all of the programs and files on the computer by doing a disc free restoration to the manufacturers default condition. It might well be that I have to do this, but if if Acer-Europe can supply the discs I might be able to save them...

Just take me outside and shoot me...!

pp

Rushing - haven't got time to read in, but last summer, my friend lost many Gb of photos on her Vista HP laptop. I was afraid to run a repair on the OS and used linux-based boot to get in.

When the photos were safe - it took a very long time - I suddenly had the idea of using my Vista (I have a dual boot Sony and carry both OS recovers) . . . using it on her HP. It worked perfectly, doing the repair in just a few minutes.

These were just the discs I made years ago. I can't remember if it needed the Key but it was on her machine anyway.

There is a chance now I suppose that using the wrong discs may have ruined that opportunity for you.

Just as a closure to my posts on this subject, eventually I had no options left but to do a clean reinstall of Vista. Lost everything not previously backed up of course, but I guess its not the end of the world. Now have to go through the nausea of downloading and installing SP1 and SP2 and the myriad of associated updates.

pp

'twould seem not, and I'm trying to get rid of SkyDrive. I didn't ask for it, don't want it, get rid of it, 'cept I can't. I've Uninstalled it in the programme list, but it won't go away.

I had to open a Microsoft Account to instal Win. 8.1, and I wonder of I do manage to kick SkyDrive into the never never by maybe closing my Microsoft Accoiunt - will it screw up my Win 8 ?

I didn't want Win 8 in the first place, but it came packaged with the new "off the shelf" laptop I recently had to buy.

Grrrrr !!! WTF can't they leave us alone ?

When it comes to annoyware it looks like SkyDrive is the new Outlook Express of days past.

General point - please install service packs and updates, chaps, especially if you are running 32-bit systems... it's for your own good and that of your fellow man.

You can make custom Windows installations (without unneeded components, and including current security updates) reasonably easily, either with official MS tools, or with 3rd party tools e.g. http://www.rt7lite.com/downloads.html

You can get around that very simply - just click "create new account" without putting in your info, and then on the next screen the "login without microsoft account" button appears.
I think it's ridiculous that they are pushing this so hard though... one wonders what hoops we will have to jump through to avoid this in Win 8.2...