PC Restore Question

[bongski55]

I have a new dell 640m with vista home basic installed. I was curious to try to restore the laptop to factory condition via CTRL+F11 to start the Pc Restore at startup. It did not work.
I looked at what is inside the Restore partition and found and executable called "PCRestore.exe" in the Tools folder. I tried it and when it tried to erase the hard disk it stopped with a blank error screen displayed.
What is this file?
How do I use the Restore partition?

[Kizo]

I have the Exact same problem/question for my Dell laptop (XPS-series).
Have you found a solution?

Thank you.

[RichTJ99]

Im in this same boat as well. Any solutions?

[Fountainhead]

I have a new dell 640m with vista home basic installed. I was curious to try to restore the laptop to factory condition via CTRL+F11 to start the Pc Restore at startup. It did not work.
I looked at what is inside the Restore partition and found and executable called "PCRestore.exe" in the Tools folder. I tried it and when it tried to erase the hard disk it stopped with a blank error screen displayed.
What is this file?
How do I use the Restore partition?

I have no idea whether it would work, but you might try booting to a command prompt from a flash drive, or an external floppy if you have one. (Can't help with the exact procedure for creating a flash drive that boots to a DOS prompt, but I'm sure google would be your friend here.) Once you've booted to the command prompt, you can navigate to to folder with the pcrestore.exe file and run it from the command line.

May not work, but worth a shot. But I can pretty much guarantee that that particular file wasn't meant to be launched from inside a windows session on the drive you're erasing.

[XPSboy]

guys if i were you i will not use windows system restore....its a crap!

google RollbackRx....

i've been experiencing lots of software conflict problem and Blue Screen of Death....i just rollback my system to previous snapshot all my problem is gone.


$0.02

[paper_wastage]

they're not using windows system restore... they're using the Restore partition that dell has to restore it to original factory conditions

if i were u, i wont use the default system restore... i would delete that partition.... install a fresh copy of windows and all the necessary drivers/applications, then use any imaging software to clone the hard drive... that way reinstallation is so much easier+faster

if u dont have a copy of vista, either download from microsoft directly and use ur CDkey, or ask dell to send u a copy of one(either they give it to u free or they ask u to send it back and not charge u at all)

[shiroamada]

Hi Guys,
I am going to share how I restores the Dell Factory Image,
Before loding the vista logo, keep pressing for F8
There will be various selections there, please select "Repair Your Computer" (the first selection)

After that select the last selection, which is "Dell Factory Image Restore". Click on it, then just wait for it until it auto restart.

The executed file in D:\Tools\PCRestore.exe is not working in Vista Enviroments, it will prompt out a blank message box. I just want to share this with ur guys~

Have a nice day~