making recovery disk

I bought a new Acer laptop which didn't come with any disks. I don't have a Vista disk laying around to repair any problems I may have later. I do know that the restore is on another partition. Can I either get a replacement Vista disk somewhere and use the COA on the bottom or access the partition (need info) and create my own Vista install disk? I am afraid that if I lose my hd I am screwed and will have to buy a whole brand new full Vista disk and that costs quite a bit. And besides I really don't like all of the prorprietary stuff on this thing anyway so all I am really concerned about is the Vista as I really kinda like it.

Acer normally has a program for making a recovery cd/dvd, but since you did not post the model, I can not look under the KB, etc. so see if it is listed.

http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/for...0%26%20Manuals

Although I did buy a OEM version of Vista and wiped my hdd for my Toshiba laptop after I got the drivers I would need and burned to data CDs. Not that spendy.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...rating-Systems

Read carefully, you may find this very interesting and it works.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...rade_clean.asp

Well my eyes are now a little more open about Vista. That last link is a good one. As a matter of fact I went to Amazon and bought a Vista secrets book by Paul Thurrott to more enlighten my pea sized brain. Now as far as the secret partition on my Acer 5315 I have found on the Empowering Technology applet that I can make a disk to restore my pc to factory default. Can I extract only the Vista off of this or is it a complete restore of everything? How can I look at the contents of this secret partition?

All I know is that after cleaning up what you do not want and making the disk, somethings might disappear. I hope they do and as for seeing what is on them, I have no idea.

Got a GOOD book, hefty reading though. Read it 3 times and about the 5 time things started to stick.

Thanks for the advice! I got the book new at Amazon for 1.98 plus 3.99 shipping. Couldn't pass it up. I have not dealt with Vista much so all of this will be a journey for me. I will try to post back later on my progress.

You're Welcome!

You can also create Vista Recovery Disc, which is basically Vista OS, excellent for any repairs (you can't reinstall with it, though).

1. Create Vista Recovery Disc.

Option 1:
http://www.c4consulting.com.au/soluc...SOLUCTIONS.htm

Option 2:
Download Vista Recovery Disc iso image: http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/
Burn it to CD, or DVD: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/G/B...to+a+CD+or+DVD

2. Boot from created disk.
At first screen click on Repair your computer:
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
This will bring you to a new screen where the repair process will look for all Windows Vista installations on your computer. When done you will be presented with the System Recovery Options dialog box:
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
After this, it will present you with a list of options including startup repair, system restore and command prompt:
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2011/12/3.jpg
Try System Restore, first.
If that doesn't work, try Startup Repair.