Many manufacturers for some time have used a hidden area on the hard drive called a recovery or service partition. From this area you can start the computer to a special software and restore it to the factory setup. Trouble is that to do this you need to know which keys to press to initiate the recovery software. Over time I hope to put together a list of these initiation sequences for each computer I have experienced. There is no quarantee it will work for you, however it is one more chance. Successfull operation also requires that the drive has not been damaged by utility software by the user.

When you buy a computer that uses a recovery partition they sometimes have a utility program installed to allow you to make a set of recovery disks. You should do this and keep them in a safe place in case your drive dies completely.

Make sure you always back up your personal files.

ACER Aspire desktop, Semperon 3000+ with Gigabyte board. – Press ALT + F11

DELL Dimension (probably others)  =  Press Control + F11
Notes. It is not unlikely that the recovery partition has been made inaccessable by disk utilities. There is a possibility however that the data can be accessed and restored to your computer. The process is fairly complicated and requires changing of drive boot data. Please contact us if you need asistance.