Restore failed  reason 0xa0000002 on acer aspire 6530 restore

Hi Rindi. Orignal memory and tested replacement memory was also tested with Memtest 86 v. 2.11 prior to Microscrope tests. Couldn't see any mfg hardware diag routine to test the drive with but the original and replacement drive were also used without resolving the issue. I did wonder about the media being damaged but it all codes on it point back to that machine and the discs copied without issue. Also made sure laptop was on latest firmware to rule this out. I would have just done a generic install and activated it but the licence key underneath is not valid and Acer support confirm this (not sure how they can get away with that). There are tons of reports of this error on various acer laptops but seemingly not easy solution. Will look into ultimatebootcd and come back asap.

OEM licenses used by large manufacturers usually use the same key, so they don't have to enter the key themselves for every PC they install. The key on the sticker is usually just useful if you have to call m$.

Usually the recovery media contain image files from which the system is restored, and files within that image may be corrupt, so it's possible that you can still copy the files themselves from the CDs/DVDs without error.

Hi Rindi. Still downloading ultimatebootcd but we did speak to Microsoft about it and their attitude was tough, speak to Acer and they (Acer) said that the keys would not activate normally. As the machne was trashed somehow, we could not use the original recovery partition or likewise use any tools to confirm the current installed key and reload based on that.   I see your point ref the media may contain some of corruption but hopefully that is not the case because it took Acer about 3 weeks to get the last set of discs to us and be charged £50 odd in the process.  Will update based on ultimatebootcd based tests asap.

Update. Managed to resolve it, based on final suggestions of Rindi and ComputerTechie. A variation on both suggestions. We managed to find another source for the disk contents of a similar model but even when force cloned with Ghost it would not work "as is". Got hold of another Acer with XP recovery partition, initially clones as it, then from the faulty drive obtained cloned the Vista recovery over the XP Recovery. It was a shot in the dark but it worked perfectly. "Sledgehammer to crack a nut approach" but has the desired effect. Splitting points between both Rindi and ComputerTechie as pointed in the direction to attempt to solve it. Cheers.