Acer :: PQSERVICE Partition ... Need It Or Delete It?
Sep 17, 2008
I recently bought an Acer 5610z from a family member that didn't need it anymore and it didn't come with any documentation or software save for the Vista OEM DVD. I proceeded to immediately wipe the HD and make a new install with Vista on a 20 GB partition and my remaining space reserved for programs and the like.
About 2 days later I realized I was missing space on my HD and realized there was a hidden partition for recovery called PQSERVICE. This is my first notebook and I had no idea how hard it is to find drivers and was having a hard time finding all the drivers and programs I needed (even from the manufacturer most of the drivers/utilities are for win XP).
I didn't make the recovery DVD's so I thought it might be possible to find the utilities or drivers on the hidden partition. I've unhidden it but I'm at a loss as to where to find them or if any drivers or utilities are even on it.
At this point do I even need the partition or can I delete it? I'd love to find someone with a copy of the DVD's at factory default settings but...
Having already done a clean install of Vista Ultimate, and thoroughly configuring my system away from the Acer factory default, and having burned both Acer and my own recovery disks (the latter using Complete PC Backup right after the clean install), do I really need the PQSERVICE partition anymore?
If not, I'll make sure to delete it next time I clean install - when I get my new T8300 in a few weeks.
Can the hidden partition be emptied and made "visible"?
My laptop is rather new, and I noted that the C drive was pretty full already. I deleted many software items and added other software that I needed, but there isn't much left anyway. The D drive is largely empty however. Can the C drive be repartitioned? Is any special software needed to do that?
The hidden partition seems not to be of much use after one has made the 3 DVD factory default backup. Can it be deleted? Made Visible and used for something else?
I have Acer Aspire 6920 Notebook which came with vista home premium in 64 bit installed. I have made Recovery disks (3 DVDs) and had resorted to factory defaults several times by using the DVDs and not by Alt+F10 (at that time I did not know about alt+f10). I now have removed the 64- bit vista home premium and have windows-7 Ultimate RTM, Vista Home Premium and XP Pro all in 32 bit in three separate partitions in one single hdd. I have also done BIOS upgrade from 1.06 to 1.14. I have SATA mode set to IDE instead of the default AHCI due to XP not functioning under AHCI interface.
My BIOS shows hdd pw frozen by default though I have removed the hdd and set the BIOS to default twice. I find the Vista Home Premium in 64 bit OEM is a real pain since it has a lot of third party softwares – free and sharewares – which I have to uninstall every time (more than 20 of them) and therefore I tried to delete the acers recovery partition which is of 18 GB size and my Notebook with 250 GB hdd shows only 232 GB.
However, the partition is hidden and I have tried to unhide and delete the recovery partition with a number of third party partition softwares like Paragon, partedit32, Easeus, Norton, acronis, G-parted, macrium reflect, all with no success!
Now I request the learned members to give me a solution that will work, in simple procedure explained, to unhide the acer recovery partition and deleting it without disturbing my present OSes installed on the three partitions. Macrium does not show the PQ Service/EISA partition.
I've created a Factory Default Backup with a USB drive with Acer Recovery Management. I see this message which tells me I can delete the recovery partion to free up disk space after I've created the backup but it never gives me the option to do so.  I DO get the option to remove the Driver Recovery Partition after backing it up to USB but not the 10GB Recovery Partition. It's a a HUGE deal on a system that only has a 32GB hard drive.
I have an m1530 and my Windows 7 is on its way! I currently have 10gb just sitting there doing nothing thanks to the recovery partition from the factory and I was
thinking of deleting that partition and creating a 50gb partition for windows 7 and having the remaining hard drive as storage for an easy future formatting environment.
1) Is there any reason to keep the recovery partition and am I safe to delete it and regain my 10gb?
2) 50gb might be too much, but Im not too sure what the windows 7 fingerprint is (15gb?). What is a good OS partition size for windows 7
I wanted to install vista. I did the normal bootcamp procedure but forgot and extracted candy bar at the same time the partition was being created.after the partition was created and the message appeared telling me to insert my windows cd appeared, my mac froze. I held down the power button and forced shut it down. I switched it on again and windows setup started. Everything went on fine and i booted in windows fine. However , when i wanted to enter my os x partition, it would start and go up to the part where the rotating circle would appear. It continued rotating for a long time and then restarted my mac. I tried again several times and it did this. I then booted my mac from the os x install dvd and selected install os x on the windows partition. Setup failed. I launch disk utility and verify and repair disk partition (There was no problem when i did disk check). I restarted my mac and everything booted fine. I now have a new partition labeled "mac os x". I launched bootcamp manager and tried to restore my disk and get the error: "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition: The startup disk must be formatted as a single mac os extended (journaled) volume or already partitoned by Bootcamp Assistant for installing Windows".
How do i format it in this format? Do i have to use the setup disk again or do i use disk utility?
I have the original yoga 13  128gb and  i recently bought anther 128gb same model from ebay. when i installed it it already came windows and all the partiion. i dont need that stuff i just want to use it as a second  hard drive for storage puropses. the problem i am having is deleting all the content and combining all the partiion to one.  how do i delete the parttition and format the SSD  as you can see in the image bellow i new the disk 1 to be just  SSD for storage purposesÂ
I have a HP 2000 2b09wm. It just broke, giving me the error message saying in so many words that I needed a new hard drive. Guess the old one went kaput (even though I just bought this pc on eBay not a month or two ago). I have a new HD and a Windows 8 reinstall software from a dealer on eBay. I tried multiple routes in attempting to reinstall the OS resulting in as many dead ends*.The last thing offered up was to delete partitions in the new HD. I looked at an eHow page, How to Delete Partitions on a Hard Drive. It says to get a CD that includes fdisk.com. I burned super fdisk (2 MB) from SFbootablecd.iso and fdisk (40 MB) from fd11src.iso. I went to the BIOS to configure the boot order. I put Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive first, saved it and tried both CDs. It always just boots to a screen with this:  Boot Device Not Found. Please install an operating system on your hard diskHard Disk (3F0)F2 System DiagnosticsFor more information, please visit: [URL] .....  I even tried putting USB CD/DVD ROM Drive first…same results.  So, my questions to you, I guess, is firstly, why are the fdisk CDs not booting? Did I burn the wrong fdisk? Secondly, do you know why my OS couldn’t be installed using the reinstall software? I’m assuming the software is legit and the computer did in fact originate with Windows 8.  *A couple of the dead ends:  Compatibility report - The computer started using the Windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows starts normally. Then, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade. Do not select [ICustom advanced]I to perform an upgrade. [ICustom advanced]I installs a new copy of Windows and deletes your programs and settings.  Another route for Windows Setup, I get to this: Select the driver to install: Browse for Folder - Browse to the driver, and then click OK.It gives you the list under "Computer" which includes "CD Drive (E HRM_CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5" (the reinstall software) and underneath that, the folders - boot - efi - sources - support.Picking just the E drive itself, message appears: Load driver: No signed device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK.
I'm using hp pavilion dv6-6016tx.i have recover DVDs and all necessary drivers backed up.so can i delete my recovery partition. i'll be having the recovery DVDs all time with me and don't need HDD boot in case of formatting or recovery]?
My Laptop Dell Inspiron 15R , delete key not working. When I click on any file , The message comes for its deletion "Do you want to delete the item and move to recycle bi?". Continuously messages are coming for deletion. In text while typing, the text goes automatically deleted.
My problems lies with the PQSERVICE partition. It is still there and I can see it with Ubuntu. When I attempt start up, I get the message c:ootcd and an error status message. I also have recovery cds that I have tried to to use but I am not able to boot up from them or get any sort of indication that they work , only a blinking cursor then back to the c:ootcd error. My question is if I just completely delete and reformat my entire hard drive, pay that "lovely" $20 fee for new recovery cds from Acer as I'm out of warranty, would it work?
Im interested in an alternate use of PQSERVICE and the ALT-F11 D2D Trigger. I would like to put something else other than recovery software on the PQSERVICE partition, specifically a secondary OS. One that can be launched secretly by holding the D2D key combo on startup.
As far as i know, the only limitations are that PQSERVICE has to be named that, be the first partition on disk, be smaller than 5 gigs, be of partition type, be FAT32, and has to have Acer's special mbr.
So, knowing those facts, how can i get something else other than the winPE recovery software to boot when holding down alt-f11? What file does the BIOS D2D functionality look for, is it just NTLDR?
If this is the case, i should just be able to install windows on that partition, restore acer's mbr, reset the partition type to 12, and have it work as long as i keep the other parameters the same. Hypothetically, windows would boot
I have a clean HDD(without pqservice) and pqservice backup in acronis on usb HDD. i try to restore pqservice with acronis boot disc, everyting goes fine, then i restore mdr with the same acronis image of pqservice. everyting work fine, with acronis disc director i can see, that i have hidden pqservice as primary, next comes NTFS partition as primary, active. but alt+f10 does not want to work... d2d in bios is enabled. how can i restore everything in order to use normal factory defaults using alt+f10?
I've recently offered to help out a friend who's Acer aspire has stopped working.
It won't book into windows, but she is keen to keep her old files.
I installed a 2nd version of windows onto the machine to basically back up the whole disk using acronis true image. I've now got that image storage remotley on my own machine.
I think she bought the computer 2nd hand and never got a burned copy of the recovery disks and for some reason the Alt-F10 thing doesn't work to get into the recovery stuff (I've checked in the Bios for D2D)
I've managed to make the PQService partition visible and was wondering what was the best way to restore the machine to factory defaults. I created a CD from the STCDBOOT.ISO file, which allows me to book into the recovery manager, but all it does is prompts for the first disk/system disk.
I'm guessing that all the data required is held in the PQService partition, but I'm not sure how to create the backup DVD's that should have been done when the machine was first used.
I would image that the data is held in the 92EPIXIE.nnn files in the D2D/images directory of the PQService.
started with USB thumb drives not showing in MY Computer but visible every where else, getting a drive letter etc. After abunch of investigation I finally seemed to isolate the problem to some Apple Itunes related software. I used MSCONFIG to shut off the apple updater and some other Apple Ipod related startup software. THe USB problem went away. I decided to then do a little cleanup and get rid of some software installs, I remove Apple Mobile Device support and Apple updater as well as US service. This seemed to go well but I got a software may not work right with out a reboot so I did. On reboot I again got a software needs a reboot I did it again. Now the wierdness starts, my USB problem is gone but I now have a visible F: drive called PQSERVICE, checking with disk managment in system tools I see all my partitions but in Disk MAnagement none of them show a drive letter but all are visible in My Computer and in programs with their correct drive letters. THe machine boots fine and all files are there. I used PTEDIT and see the PQSERVICE partion has a type of 12 which from what I can find should be hidden. My Alt F10 seems to take me to the partition even though it is visble, I did not choose to restore as I really want to figure this out before I re-format this laptop. My concern is why can't I hide PQSERVICE and why are there no drive letters showing in Disk Management? I know most people want to make PQSERVICE visible but I want it to go back to the way it was. Also the PQSERVICE shows a EISA Configuration Healthy in disk Management and therefore I can't do anything to it.
I have an Acer Travelmate 6460 with Windows XP on it. I want to format my harddisk and put a Vista Business on it (no OEM). With that format I mean complete one, including the PQService partition from Acer.
Basically I want to have an 'Acer clean' laptop in the end (I only want the drivers for the hardware, and the downloads to make the soft keys working).
Now first of all i can not delete the PQService partition (not in Windows, not in the Vista installation program after booting from dvd). That made me curious and searched the internet.
Now I've read that it is possible that after deleting the PQservice partition, you loose the MBR and can not boot anymore. I don't want to take that risk because I do not want to loose many time during working hours.
I'm a software developer, knows a fair bit of hardware but I really like some advice of some 'manual' of what to do to accomplish what I want. (If that is possible).
This guide is made based on an Acer Aspire 5315, but will probably work on other machines with a hidden eisa rescue partition.
This is for everyone who has got problems unhiding and accessing the hidden rescue partition, and have tried all the methods with d2d disabling and changing partition type, perhaps with partedit32 or ptedit32, only to find out that nothing has happened after rebooting.
Download and install "Diskpart" from Microsoft, a small but powerful textbased utility, the link below is a direct download: [url]
Here's the step by step to succeed...
Press "win + r" to bring up the run window Type: "cmd", to bring up the command window Type: "diskpart", a new command window pops up with a "Diskpart >" prompt Type: "rescan", a configuration check runs Type: "list disk", a list of the availible disks appears Type: "select disk 0", if your hidden partition resides on that disk of course Type: "list partition", to find out with partition is your hidden one (probably about 10 gb and without name).......................
my Acer Extensa 4420. A few days ago while on my laptop the BSOD suddenly popped up and my laptop shut down. A restarted it and while it did log in, I got notices saying a lot of stuff was corrupt. I ran chkdsk to see if i could diagnose the issue, and it stated the system volume was corrupt. As time went by using windows became erratic. I decided to try to restore my acer back to factory settings using the eRecovery program. This program would stop working every time right before the process began. Eventually windows stopped booting up at all. leaving my at a boot screen the endlessly looped. I installed Ubuntu shortly after, and managed to get my PQSERVICE partition recognized by the GRUB bootloader and Ubuntu itself (as a mounted drive). The problem is that whenever I do boot to the PQSERVICE partition and look through the options in the recovery center, there is no restore to factory default settings.
managed to overwrite the PQService on my Acer Aspire E380. Acer very promptly sent me recovery DVDs for my model, one System DVD and one Recovery DVD. Some of what I've read here confuses me a bit, however, and makes me afraid to use these discs if I should ever need to.
To sum up my question as succinctly as I can: if PQService has been deleted/overwritten, will system/recovery DVDs issued by Acer itself (sent from the company) still function, or will they do me no good? I'm asking you guys because, frankly, my experiences with Acer's support have been less than stellar.
The laptop is now 2 months old. I deleted all the games, but there is alot left over. After years of admin work on Win2k, and nothing comparable on Vista, I need advice on what I can safely delete and what I may, sooner or later, need.
Here is a list. Let me know what I can and should not delete. I know I have a factory default in a hidden partition. And note that once I delete something, further backups will be made without that software.
1) Welcome Center (Would be nice to get rid of for all users. But I am the only user on this system for the foreseeable future)
2) Windows Media Center - I may back up an audio CD or convert audio to WMA, I may make a back up of my DVDs, but I don't play CD's or DVDs.
3) Windows Photo Gallery. This is actually nice software, but the camera comes with its own, and I play any video CDs in my DVD player.
4) Extras and Upgrades - Anytime Upgrade, Marketplace, Windows Web Site. Beyond purchasing software, why would I use this?
5) Windows DVD maker - Does the Acer backup software use this? I'm still very happy with Nero, and this doesn't seem easy to use.
6) Windows Movie Maker - I don't have a video camera to make movies with, and no inclination to make any at all. I suffered through my father's home movies. - Never again.
7) Live Messenger Download. - I'm not an online chatterer. What else would I need this for? IS this needed by Live Meeting?
8) Windows Meeting Space - I would use this very rarely if at all, and certainly not in the foreseeable future. Live meeting would NOT need this as I understand.
9) Windows Sidebar - From what I read about it, it doesn't seem needed. Aren't shortcuts the same?
10) Table PC - This isn't a tablet PC. But I like the fact that the right side of the touch-pad acts as a scrolling device. Is Tablet PC needed for that?
I am having a problem deleting Vista on my companies laptop, when I put in my OEM XP SP3 disc I am getting an error message, there is already an updated version of windows installed with no options, do I need a partion disc to help me? what brand & model # of this disc do I need, are there any other ways to accomplish complete deletion of VISTA & install XP SP3?
My parents have an Aspire 5000 that they use solely for internet browsing. It came with Norton Internet Security 2005, but my dad wants to install a different anti-virus program. The problem is every time we try to delete Norton through the Add/Remove, the only thing that happens is a window will pop up for a fraction of a second and then disappear. It refuses to be deleted.
There are multiple programs in there for Norton including LiveReg and LiveUpdate as well as the Internet Security. The only one that seems to be able to be deleted is LiveUpdate. Is there an or/der of deleting these programs that I have to follow to make sure they will actually delete? Does anyone else have this issue?
I personally use free AVG and never have any issues. It seems Norton and McAfee cause more problems than they fix.
I own a Acer Aspire V5 laptop and noticed a problem with the delete key recently while I was using Microsoft Office Word. Whenever I pressed the delete key it wouldn't delete what I selected and instead opened up the Key Tips in the ribbon. After having my son look at it he couldn't figure out the problem as well, but he noticed that the Delete key was functioning in the same as the Alt key. How to get delete key working correctly again?
A few days ago i bought an Acer 7730 laptop with Windows Vista pre-installed and no disks. After initial hesitation i have decided to keep vista and not downgrade to XP. After all there will be more service packs and tweaking should speed it up lots anyway.
However, i really want to get rid of the three partitions on the hard drive. There is only one physical hard drive but there are three partitions; a hidden 10GB one (EISA configuration) which from what i have gathered is now obsolete, a C: partition 111.44GB and a D: partition 111.44GB. There is no need to split a drive into several partitions now that we have the NTFS file system (unless you are using multiple operating systems of course - but i am not) so this is really annoying me.
I have made the 2 recovery DVD and the 1 applications/drivers DVD. I have an old WinXP disk that i can use to format the laptop if required.
Question:
Using the recovery disks (which i'm assuming contain a copy of my bought OEM Vista that was pre-installed on the laptop), can i delete the partitions, format the hard drive and install Vista onto a single c: partition?
I've done this exact process before with WinXP hundreds of times but i'm not sure whether i can do the same for Vista with just the 3 DVD mentioned...
I have 4 partitions on my disk as shown in Disk Management. I don't use hibernation, so I want to reclaim the 8GB partition for use as storage. I have a few questions regarding this.
1) What will I compromise if I remove the 8GB partition, other than hibernation?
2) I right-clicked on the OS partition and selected "Shrink Volume". I received the popup shown in the attached image below. It doesn't reflect anything about returning the 8GB partition to the OS partition. In fact, shrinking goes against my intention of expanding the OS partition to include the 8GB. Right-clicking on the 8GB partition only brings up "Help" in the context menu and is not shrinkable.
3) Can I do this any time after having used the laptop for a while, with data and programs already installed? Does the process affect existing files and installations?
while my HP laptop was being repaired at Best Buy, I needed a computer. Best Buy luckily has a program where you can buy an "open box" computer and return it with no restocking fees, etc. while yours is being repaired. I was fortunate enough to find an Acer 4730Z for under $300, which was great for a "temporary" fix. I fully intended to take it back after mine came home.
But, as I've used it, I've liked it, and my DH's laptop is slowly dying, so for that price, we think we are going to go ahead and keep this Acer for him.
My problem is this: the hard drive came divided into two equal drives, C and D, both with roughly 111 GBs. The main software seems to be on the C - there's only 73 GBs free there, where D is completely empty.
I know we could adjust, but everything document, picture, and music-wise wants to save to C, but obviously D is the more free space.
Can I unpartition this drive, or, at the very least, make D smaller so that there's more room on C, or switch the OS stuff to D and make C bigger?
This is weird. Previously I have two active partitions on my acer 8930G-7665. Drive C: is 250GB and Drive D: is 250GB
Currently Drive D: is missing. I went to the disk management under WIN7 to mount or even assigned a drive letter to my inaccessible partition.
Disk Management can see the inaccessible partion but the problem is that the program wont give me any option to play with when I right click it. Please see attachment ...
