Acer eRecovery is a vendor-specific method you can use to restore your computer to its original factory settings, or to custom settings you create and store on your hard drive or other removable media. eRecovery also contains a backup utility you can use to back up data to your hard drive or other removable media. Access to eRecovery requires you to use the default “000000” password or one you select. While it is important to store a custom password in a safe location, if you lose or forget it, there are steps you can take to recover your Acer eRecovery password.

Stage 1: Locate and Unhide Hidden Rescue Partition
Acer stores custom eRecovery passwords on your computer in PQService, a hidden rescue partition. We need to make this partition visible so that we can access it to recover eRecovery password.

1. Right click on My Computer icon and select Properties.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you’ll see all drivers on your local computer, including the hidden partition PQService.
3. Right click on the PQService partition, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change and then assign a drive letter to your PQService partition.

Now you should be able to open and view the PQService partition from Windows Exporer.

Stage 2: Reset eRecovery Password

1. Navigate to the drive containing PQService. Find the file aimdrs.dat. Right-click on the file and select Open with and then choose Notepad or another text editor you prefer.

2. Open the file with your text editor and locate the eRecovery password. Look for a line that reads, “Password=password name”, “Hint=the password hint”. Write down the password and close the file.

Now you can access Acer eRecovery with the recovered password.