Dell System Recovery Guide

[sri1529]

@ booboo12


hi,

yesterday my dell laptop turned off suddenly , I dont know what happened, whe I tried to restart it, I just see a blinking cursor screen, I dont get anything else after that.

I called dell today morning they said my OS got crashed during some update, I dont have any recovery discs, so Dell is sending a recovery discs, I will get that in couple of days.

I dont have a backup of my data, can you please suggest me a method to make a recovery installation with out loosing any of my data? Please help me....

[booboo12]

@ booboo12


hi,

yesterday my dell laptop turned off suddenly , I dont know what happened, whe I tried to restart it, I just see a blinking cursor screen, I dont get anything else after that.

I called dell today morning they said my OS got crashed during some update, I dont have any recovery discs, so Dell is sending a recovery discs, I will get that in couple of days.

I dont have a backup of my data, can you please suggest me a method to make a recovery installation with out loosing any of my data? Please help me....

The easiest way would be to make a live CD/USB stick of Ubuntu on another machine.

Boot from that and use an external hard drive to save your documents and stuff from your messed up windoes install to.

Good luck. Post back if you have questions!

[IDoBottleNow]

Booboo12 cheers for the Excellent Guide, allowed me to work out most of what the rebuild process is and get a better understanding of what my question is….!

I have an XPSL501 which is about due for a rebuild, & I was planning to use the Dell OS DVD to rebuild the Primary Partition, however I have the added bonus of having picked up two Trojans (the problem with my GF expecting mail from unknown people)

So as I now feel violated I am weighing up my options;
What is the likelihood that the Dell Restore partition and recovery partitions will have become infected?
If they aren’t infected then I will just delete the main partition,
If they are then I intend to reformat the whole drive, will the Dell Disc allow me to do this, or do I need to use a Win7 Pro DVD I am able to borrow, (only for the tools to reformat the drive) if I go this route will I then be able to rebuild from the Dell OS DVD?
if so what functions will I loose out on?

[booboo12]

Booboo12 cheers for the Excellent Guide, allowed me to work out most of what the rebuild process is and get a better understanding of what my question is….!

I have an XPSL501 which is about due for a rebuild, & I was planning to use the Dell OS DVD to rebuild the Primary Partition, however I have the added bonus of having picked up two Trojans (the problem with my GF expecting mail from unknown people)

So as I now feel violated I am weighing up my options;
What is the likelihood that the Dell Restore partition and recovery partitions will have become infected?
If they aren’t infected then I will just delete the main partition,
If they are then I intend to reformat the whole drive, will the Dell Disc allow me to do this, or do I need to use a Win7 Pro DVD I am able to borrow, (only for the tools to reformat the drive) if I go this route will I then be able to rebuild from the Dell OS DVD?
if so what functions will I loose out on?

It's pretty unlikely that the Dell Recovery partition was affected. You can use the Dell OS Disc to wipe and partition the entire drive if desired, just like you would from a standard Windows disc.

[IDoBottleNow]

Booboo12

Thanks for that, I'll give the recovery partition a go, & check if my online banking is redirected to a scam site again....!

Sorry for the delay in replying, the NAS with all my backup data decided to have a fan failure after a powercut, so being fixing that.....!

cheers

[booboo12]

Booboo12

Thanks for that, I'll give the recovery partition a go, & check if my online banking is redirected to a scam site again....!

Sorry for the delay in replying, the NAS with all my backup data decided to have a fan failure after a powercut, so being fixing that.....!

cheers

No problem! Ouch, hope you get that sorted!

[PV2012]

Hello,

I recently reinstalled OS on my Dell XPS Studio laptop. I have Dell provided resources and Windows Vista Home Edition CDs. I formatted C: and reinstalled OS after that drivers from resources CD. Everything seems fine.

* Question 1 - I did not touch recovery partition D:. But, now I don't see 'Repair Your Computer' option which allows to do factory restore. Dell website has a note: 'By performing a Manual Reinstall, you will no longer be able to do a PC Restore or Restore to Factory Settings.' So, I guess as I did manual reinstall, this option is no longer available. Is it true? Even though Dell website clearly says so, my googling says people can still do factory restore. So, I am confused what is correct?

* Question 2 - What is the use of recovery partition other than doing factory setting restore? If after doing manual reinstall, I can no longer use it, i.e recovery partition is of no use to me, I would like to format the drive and free up the space. I get that in future if I need to restore my machine, I will have to do manual reinstall again. Correct me if I am wrong.

* Question 3 - When I go to Computer Management > Disk Management on my newly formatted laptop, I see 3 partitions - C: OS, D: Recovery. But, the first partition listed has no drive letter assigned to it. Its size is just 39 MB. Status stays Healthy EISA configuration. What is it? I don't know if I had it before, because I had never checked before. On another laptop of mine the similar partition takes 10 GB. So, I am curious seeing the difference.

Thanks.

[booboo12]

Hello,

I recently reinstalled OS on my Dell XPS Studio laptop. I have Dell provided resources and Windows Vista Home Edition CDs. I formatted C: and reinstalled OS after that drivers from resources CD. Everything seems fine.

* Question 1 - I did not touch recovery partition D:. But, now I don't see 'Repair Your Computer' option which allows to do factory restore. Dell website has a note: 'By performing a Manual Reinstall, you will no longer be able to do a PC Restore or Restore to Factory Settings.' So, I guess as I did manual reinstall, this option is no longer available. Is it true? Even though Dell website clearly says so, my googling says people can still do factory restore. So, I am confused what is correct?

* Question 2 - What is the use of recovery partition other than doing factory setting restore? If after doing manual reinstall, I can no longer use it, i.e recovery partition is of no use to me, I would like to format the drive and free up the space. I get that in future if I need to restore my machine, I will have to do manual reinstall again. Correct me if I am wrong.

* Question 3 - When I go to Computer Management > Disk Management on my newly formatted laptop, I see 3 partitions - C: OS, D: Recovery. But, the first partition listed has no drive letter assigned to it. Its size is just 39 MB. Status stays Healthy EISA configuration. What is it? I don't know if I had it before, because I had never checked before. On another laptop of mine the similar partition takes 10 GB. So, I am curious seeing the difference.

Thanks.

1. Once you do a manual install without touching the partition, it's likely that the Windows "Repair Your Computer" tools can't "see" the partition. I'm not quite sure how to fix this as I haven't really looked into it.

2. Sure you can format and reuse the recovery partition. Just use your favorite partition manager (I like gParted) to do it.

3. You likely still have the Dell diagnostics partition as your third partition.

[coolvap]

Hello forum,

I tried to create a new installation of Windows 8 evaluation edition on my Studio XPS 1645 laptop. Did not quite like it as it is very different from the usual Windows 7 Professional edition that I am so used to, with the missing start menu button and stuff. Used it for a few days, but was still uncomfortable with it.

That's when I decided to revert to my original Windows 7 factory image. But, the dell restore shortcut Ctrl+F11 is broken now, apparently by the clean Windows 8 installation I did earlier! Did some research and found out that Dell uses a custom MBR to recognize the shortcut Ctrl+F11 to launch Dell System Restore. This custom MBR is overwritten by any clean OS installation! After some trouble, I was able to use DOS to gain access to the recovery partition and use IMAGEX to restore factory image back.

But, as it turns out, I have lost the original Dell MBR. Tried using fixes as per Goodell's website, but the DSRFIX tool also fails to work. In this regard, can someone help me by providing a copy of the Dell MBR?

This requires a tool "MBRSAVER", which is a part of DSRFIX.zip and can be downloaded from link. Steps as per Goodells website to get the same:
1) Begin with your computer with a known working Dell MBR. (If your computer briefly displays the blue "www.dell.com" bar at the top of the screen during bootup, it has a working Dell MBR
2) Boot the source computer from a DOS boot disk and run the command "mbrsaver /s a:\dellmbr.bin" to save the MBR sector.

This "dellmbr.bin" is the file that may possibly help me to restore the dell MBR and get it back to its original factory configuration.

Any help in this regard will be really appreciated. Thanks!


Important: Anyone planning to upgrade and replace original Dell factory-shipped Operating System, please backup the recovery partitions and DELL MBR using Mbrsaver utility as the new OS could disturb the Dell MBR information!

Note: I posted this in the Studio XPS 1645 thread earlier, but this seems to be more relevant thread. Apologies for re-posting/spamming.

[stewyscrewy]

I need a Computer brainiacs help with my problem. I recently bought a used Latitude XT2 laptop, and the blasted thing after owning it less then 40 days and less then 24 hours operating time started flashing blue lights on the F4,F5, and the Cap lock buttons. Then after 2 minutes the fan shuts off without booting and the flashing lights turn solid after 20/30 minutes. The biggest issue I have is I cannot access the Service Tag number. The seller removed the Sticker and I cannot boot to Bios (F2) in order to recover it. Dell company refuses to advise me on this without the service tag number. Please help me save my laptop. I have tried all the hints tricks of all the F buttons nothing works. It was originaly bought with windows Vista and the seller installed Windows 7 Professional. I dont know how to repair or if I can repair this laptop. It was suggested I install a new motherboard. If so which one is the best for this laptop?