Reinstalling Vista on an Acer 3690

I don't know how we get caught up in these things but sometimes we just do. My friends laptop Acer 3690 is really screwed up with malware and possibly some viruses/trojens. He does not know anything about computers so I opened my big mouth saying "Oh, it'll be easy, I'll just go to the factory restore partition and reset it for you." Well, now I know the Acer 3690 does not have a restore partition. My friend was supposed to make a back up of the system on disks when he first set the thing up.

So now here I am wondering if I use my Vista disk and his Vista key if I can get his laptop back in usable state. From past experience I know that laptops can be fussy with a windows reinstall if you do not have the correct drivers to install on the system. SO I went to Acer and downloaded ever driver they had for this system.

Now I am wondering if any of you have done this on the same system and if there are any particular problems I should look out for? I am using my Vista Ultimate disk but I figure if I enter his key it will work for his version that came installed. But I could be wrong there too. Any suggestions or tips?

The laptop is messed up. I don't know how he used it. it takes about ten minutes to boot. and about 3 or more minutes to register what you are doing when you use the interface. So I feel the only option is a reinstall, if I can.

So there's no recovery partition and it didn't come with a Vista installation disc?

Something is not right there. If you install an OEM copy of Windows Vista and its not the same version he has a key for it will not work.

You have to find a disc with the same version of Windows. Or you can order a recovery disc from Acer.

Can you boot into safe mode with networking? If it's not sluggish, go ahead download Malwarebytes and run a full scan and a virus scan.

I don't know if he had installation disks or not. I will try safe mode and see what it does.

Even if he didnt make the disks, they should still be there. I think its f10 on boot.

Youre correct, sometimes lappys can't run a standard Install.