Dell :: Restoring From Restore Partition Without Ctrl+f11 Nor Restore Disks
Mar 9, 2008
Just to state first and foremost, this is not an issue I have. This is a preventative post for anyone that may ask down the line. (as I've seen it asked on multiple other forums.)
I had this issue with an inspiron 1720 I just got. It had an issue, so I installed vista from a Vista RTM disk. It didn't fix the problem in the end, so I sent it into dell and got fixed, but I wanted to a fresh restore from the restore partition because on restarts, I'd get the blue screen of Death. Fun stuff right?
Well, Unknowingly, when I installed vista off of the cd, that removed the ctrl+F11 option from the dell. This is stated on many forums, and it seems that most answers to this issue is to format and install a fresh install from cd again, or call dell and get recovery disks. I figured "Heck, If I still have the restore partition, there is not reason why I can't get it to restore with some effort."
Some other people I've seen have just had viral attacks, or just want to sell their laptop and need a fresh install. This is for those people that need it. The answer to the question of what if Control and F11 don't work.
So, Here I am with the fix. There is one required bit of software that's required, and that is simply a dos boot cd. You can find many iso's for dos on the net. All you have to do is burn a copy and boot from it. [EDIT] IMPORTANT: I was wrong about dos. As stated below ( http://www.notebookforums.com/post3049150.html ) you have to do it from a 32 bit environment. You can get through one in the XP repair console (on the install cd) or through one of the options in vista's setup.[/EDIT]
Ok, so this is going to be dumbed down a bit, and I'll explain what the dos commands do. First off, after booting into dos, you need to change to the restore partition. This isn't hard at all, all you do is type "D:" and press enter. After this, you need to find the restore file. This is a file with the extension of *.wim. This is an image of windows from dell factory.
Generally this file is found in d:dellimage and is called Factory.wim. Just to double check, I'm going to tell you to change the directory. Type in "cd dellimage" and press enter. In dos, CD means Change Directory (or enter a folder). Now, to list all of the files in the directory type in "dir" and press enter...............
My HP G60 came with Vista. It has been upgraded to Windows 8.1 but the audio function has become non-functional. Is there a need for a new driver to solve this issue? If not, I am thinking of restoring Vista from restore disks. Can the restore disks still work now that it has Windows 8.1 in it?
I lost the restore partition on the original SSD that my Yoga 13 shipped with. Is there a collection of drivers and whatnot that would allow me to restore it to factory defaults on my own with a fresh windows installation? I have the win8 key from the BIOS but don't want to lose out on all the required drivers if I were to just reinstall windows myself.
My Acer 5610 had a "Supervisor Password" entered, I believe by my grandson two years ago. I noticed it once, didn't know how go get in so never did. Recently had a bad day. Used what I had for a restore back a few days, nothing worked.
I have the two Recovery Disk I made the day I bought this. Never used them. I can't get the disk to take hold and restore to Factory. I get a message I'm going to try to attach. It's not clear. What is stumping me is the last entry. "[ /NoExecute=Option]" That is the bottom. On the bar at the bottom is "ENTER=Submit" I've tried every thing I know to do.
I've learned to use the PC on my own as I live many miles from a city. Done fair but now I'm stumped. By the way I'm 75 years of age. My learning term as been more than 7 years.
I didn't make the disks when I first bought the computer (not sure why not) but I want to make disks for just in case I need to reformat in the future. What are the steps I need to take to do so? I am using Windows Vista Business.
I just picked up a laptop and I want to do a fresh install of xp. Problem is I don't have a disk. The computer still has dells partition I believe (windows says the HD is 37.3 but it's really a 40). Will the restore partition accomplish what I want?
I recently bought the XPS 15 and decided to reformat the drive with a clean win7 64bit install using the drivers CD to assist leaving the Dell recovery partition in place
I may now be selling, so attempted a Dell factory restore from the Dell restore partition using F8 on reboot
Following the manual, I hit F8 but cannot see anything relating to the Dell recovery options only win7 recovery options
I did upgrade to the latest bios from the Dell XPS 15 drivers site but surely they wouldnt have removed this options
I have no recovery CD/DVDs either. Why I cant see the F8 recovery options and whats the best option to factory restore?
I bought a Dell Inspiron N5110 last year. I created two more partitions on my hard drive. Now I want to restore my windows to factory settings, but I cannot go through the restore process.
I am quite sure that the restore partition is physically on the hard drive, but maybe because of creating new partition it cannot find the drive, or the restore program looks to wrong partition. How can I recover with the current conditions.
I wanted to know if Dell would supply MS Office restore disks for XPS laptops, what with W7 coming up. Took a look on these forums - and initial signs looked good, with people saying that you can just order these from dell.
I thought I'd check with Dell though and phoned. Finally got through to someone on my third attempt, who immediately launched into the hard sell. I said I wasn't interested, just wanted to know: do XPS laptops come with recovery disks for Office, if not could I order them later?
Her response - I would get the disks ONLY if I placed my order through her, it was not possible to get them later. I thanked her and ended the call. 2 secs later my phone rings, and it's the woman from Dell giving me the hard sell again. I say "look, I ended this call" to which she says "In that case I recommend you do not call Dell again"(the cheek!)
I had two of the same Windows 8.1 OS on my Y500 (Cloned from original to SSD). Then Last night I tried to 'refresh without affecting your files' option for my OS on the HDD so I have a fresh OS to go back to incase anything happend. then on the Lenovo screen it said that the E: drive was being refreshed as well so I freaked and turned off the computer. NOw I cant access either of the OS's. What should I do? I did do a back up right before and the back up files are still there in a partition I made in the HDD. I used a USB boot of Puppy LInux to see the files on my HDD but it would not let me transfer it to an External Hard Drive. I will Try to install a better linux and try to transfer the OKR files to another Drive.
-how would I go about restoring the back up files if I were to get them on another drive?
I have tried to restore laptop to oringal factory settings using Gateway Recovery Management disks purchased from Gateway. I have booted from System Disk (1 of 4) which ejected and instructed me to insert Recovery Disk 1 which loaded files (100%). Recovery Disk 1 ejected and instructed me to insert Recovery Disk 2 which also loaded files (100%). Then a "Restore Progress"window opened and and the process progressed to 79% and gave the following error messages: "WIMApplyImage fail. Error0x570" and "Fail to Restore Image".
Prior to attempting the Restore process, all I get when I start the Gateway NV59C laptop is the following screen:
Windows Boot Manager
A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source.
If you have a windows installation disc, insert the disc and restart your computer. Click “Repair your computer,” and then choose a recovery tool.
Otherwise, to start windows so you can investigate further, press the enter key to display the boot menu, press F8 for Advanced Boot Options, and select Last Known Good. If you understand why the digital signature cannot be verified and want to start windows with this file, temporarily disable the driver signature enforcement.
File: windowssystem32ootwinload.exe
Status: 0xc0000428
Info: Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. what is causing these error messages?
The only reason I purchased my xps m1710 is that I thought it was the top of the range model at the time, now all I want to do is replace the hd but at the same time retain all the functionality of the hidden restore partition and the media centre partition. You would expect Dell would make this easy for me as the owner and as Dell market themselves as providing user friendly IT solutions.
I have tried using trueimage to clone the drive but when trying the new drive on boot up it gets to the Dell 'blue bar' then freezes. I have tried copying partition by partition but this is even less successful.
I have tried restoring the restore 'ghost' image to the new hard drive but symantec ghost reports incompatibilities with the image file.
I am upgrading my original Samsung hd (SATA) to a new hd and would like to keep the hidden partition and mediacentre partition as my original hd. I have a new SATA hd which is currently connected in a USB enclosure. I am not a hd or filesystem expert and don't want to spend a year studying the goodells website.
I just bought a used Red E520-1143CTO in brand new condition, from someone who screwed up the OS (It had Windows 7 Home Prem 64). A lot of the drivers were missing and not working correctly. The restore partition is still there when I look in My Computer but when i reboot and press F11, I never get the option to access it. There was no Lenovo software installed to create a repair disk and of course, it didn't come with any software. Is there a way to access it?
I also have access to another E520 that is almost exactly the same (It just has the older i3 processor). I tried to create a repair disk from it and use it on this computer but it says the Windows versions are not compatible or the Repair software is not compatible with this version.
So I'm trying to figure out if there is an alternative way to access this restore partition. I've installed a company version of Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit on this machine and I've got most of the drivers installed and it appears to be working fine. But I have three that have yellow exclaimation points:
1) Base System Device 2) SM Bus Controller 3) Unknown Device
I've been downloaded drivers from this site, but I can't can't figure out which drivers I need to clear this list. So, how to get it restored to factory default. If not, I'd like to know what drivers I need to clear this list. I want it to look like brand new because I was going to give it to someone as a gift. I just don't see the on screen prompts for the wifi button (doens't work), volume, and brightness like the other machine. I'd like to get all that working.
best way to install a *clean* version of Windows 8 to their Thinkpad that came with Windows 8?
I ordered a T430s with low specs and Windows 8 and I dropped in an 8GB DIMM and mSATA drive. However, the Lenovo implementation of Windows 8 is maddeningly difficult to create backup media (you can't) and the Lenovo "restore" from the HDD partition won't allow you to restore to another drive. Plus, that kinda defeats my original purpose of a clean install without any bloatware onto a fast, user-installed mSATA or SSD.
I have Windows upgrade media I purchased for my desktop, but that install program says the installation won't work with the Lenovo Product Key specific to my Thinkpad T430s (I'm guessing it's an OEM product key while the install media is an upgrade looking for a previously installed Windows 7?)
After upgrade to Window 8.1 PRO I seeC: 932 GBD: 28 GB -listed as recovery. I want to save system image backup Currently to create system image backup I have only option to create image on external drive or on D:
1. Is possible without reinstalling windows create new partion E: in order backup system images to it? If yes how create new partition in win.8.1?
2. if partion E: will contain system image(s) can I boot from usb recovery disk and choose restore from one of system images located on E:
3. If for some reasons I want to reinstall OS from set of recovery DVD(s) to factory setting what is going to happen with partion E:
I have been given the task of restoring my brother's laptop after his hard disk gave the click of death, only 6 months outside the warranty. I have replaced the hard disk. Fortunately all his documents and photos have been copied to an external drive, but unfortunately he has no system image or restore disk or Windows 8 intallation disk.
Is there anywhere on the net where I can get an ISO image to burn a Windows 8 insallation disk or can HP supply a restore disk preferably to restore the laptop back to factory settings.
I made a DVD as a backup of the recovery partition on an Inspiron 9300. When I run recover.exe, I can see the *.gho file and I can select it. But for some reason, it says it's 76GB in size.
I can't select individual partitions so I can't copy it to the second partition. I know it's not absolutely necessary to have it but the old hard drive was crashing.
Recently I installed trial version of Windows 7 64bits on my Vostro 1014 (which originally had 32 bits Windows 7). I choose clean installation, which erased recovery partition. My laptop came with no CD. I want to restore my laptop to original settings.
I have a bit older Acer Extensa 4620Z - quite a while back (probalby 9 months) i had problems with it and it stopped working, couldnt find operating system or hard drive. I finnally decided to buy a new hard drive for it once i found out it was that the hard drive had died. I got my new seagate harddrive and installed it - I also order recovery disks from Acer so I could get my system back up and running.
This is where my problem is. I can see the harddrive from bios and at first when i tried running the recovery disks it kept saying there was no appropriate partition. I made a bootable copy of a program so I could create partitions on the harddrive. I did this and then tried running the recovery disks. This time it went further and started the recovery process but everytime it gets to D1E4T303.044 in the process (at 47%) - it stops... and sits there a second and then either jumps to 100% and starts over or an error pops up (error: 0xD000001D).
I can not figure out where to go from here - isn't there some way I can use the recovery disks to get my system up and running on the new hard drive?
i downloaded xp sp2 and burned it to cd thought all i had to do then was press f12 to boot and install cd thought this would restore it to nearly new or at least wipe everything clean but wont work anyone with any help? it has xp home edition
I am the original owner of a Dell X1 laptop. Even with the 3 year extended warranty, it is now clearly out of warranty. When we purchased this laptop, it did not come with any recovery or restore CD.
The windows partition finally died of old age with a corrupted file. Won't boot up as a dll is missing.
HOW can I get a recovery/restore CD? It is still running the original Windows XP OS.
On my new Studio 15 with Vista Home Premium SP1, I tried to partition the HDD using Easues Partition Manager and it never worked. My system would just keep giving errors. Finally, I 'restored' the system using recovery DVD but its not yet completely restored.
I had ordered my system with 1440 x 900 resolution and max I can get is 1152 x 864. At many other places, I feel like its running on generic drivers and specific drivers are not installed.
Can anybody help me in figuring this out and how do I go ahead and install drivers for my components.
There is one DVD with drivers and utilities. Do I go through this DVD for one by one components? or Dell provides any utility that will identify your hardware and install drivers for that?
I just don't want to do something blindly and f*** up the system again.
I'm trying to restore my SXPS16 back to how it was when i bought it using the recovery partition. But when I go to the advanced boot menu the option to do the factory restore is missing.
I know I can do a clean windows install using the CD that came with it but I'd rather just have it the way it was when I first got it.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this, or otherwise, is there another way to do a factory restore?
I have a vostro 1510 and I need to restore my laptop to how I first got it. Ive read about pressing f8 and it taking you to the advanced boot screen and that you just press the down arrow keys to repair your computer...the only problem is that there is no repair your computer option on that screen.
I was in the middle of watching a show on hulu when the computer suddenly got really slow for no apparent reason. I tried closing apps but it didn't help. Being very impatient I held the power button down to turn it off.
When I turned it back on the hard drive instantly started working non stop (HDD light on solid. not blinking) and it took forever to load windows. The HDD is on constantly now and the performance is terrible
I am trying to restore my laptop (studio xps 16) to factory settings using the recovery image. If I look in my computer, i can see C and D drives.
D is my recovery partition with 7gb full out of 10gb. This is good and dandy except when i open the D drive, there is one folder that says RECOVERY that is empty. Why is it empty when there are 7gb's of files in there? I already have hidden files shown
I just need a quick verification about something. My FZ21S recently bit the dust due to that nVidia error that Sony in all
fairness repaired free of charge when it happened a few weeks back (out of warranty also).
Now very recently my screen overheated causing some damage apprantly this was due to the graphics card again but this time even though they will repair
the motherboard free of charge again, they will charge me for the screen....756 .....
