I have had to reinstall Windows Vista Home Basic on my Inspiron 530. In addition to the C drive, I set up a D drive for the recovery partition (10 GB) which is how the machine was originally set up. I have all of the disks that came with the computer when I purchased it, including the "DVD for reinstalling Del Insprion 530/530s computer software", which has diagnostics and utilities and device drivers. Here is my question: Which files do I reinstall on the recovery partition and where do I find them? Many thanks!
--Jim
Jim Lissemore
Once deleted, the PC restore utility cannot be downloaded, or reinstalled, as it is factory installed software.
Bev.
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Forum Member since 2001
I am not employed by Dell
Thanks, Bev.
You are welcome.
Bev
Question? When I first got my Dell 530 about a year ago I made an Acronis image of my D recovery partition.
Can I restore the recovery partition with this image or is this just wishful thinking?
Thanks for your reply
John
John.
Having never tried that, I cannot say, all you can do, is to try recreating the recovery partition and see what happens, but my thoughts are, it could be an exercise in futility.
What I have done for several years is use either Acronis, or Casper to image the primary hard drives to other hard drives and when an imaged drive has been installed, both the recovery and Dell diagnostics partitions are fully functional.
I found your post interesting because I have an Inspiron 530S that is less than a year old and the entire hard drive died. After many, many hours on the phone with tech support, they finally determined that and days and days (and two installers later), they sent a "new" hard drive. I guess I assumed that because it was under the one year warranty, it would indeed be a NEW hard drive. Instead I see it is a refurbished one, and am waiting to see if it all installs properly without having to use the disks! I hope so, because I don't want to have to make partition decistions like those you are discussing, I think I might get lost in the process.
Also, the tech support person that I spoke to during my first of several phone conversations told me that when the "new" hard drive arrived, the technician would be able to get all of my files from the old one onto the new one. Not so!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am one very disastisfied Dell customer that won't buy from them ever again.
Any suggestions on hwo to recover the old files without paying a lot of money????
ksp4art
All of Dell's replacement parts are marked 'Refurbished', even when the parts are new.
As it is a replacement hard drive, you probably will have to reinstall windows manually and load the drivers and applications, using the discs that were shipped with the computer, as the PC is under warranty, Dell Technical Support may assist you with this, by 'talking' you through the installation.
The Techie that told you, the technician would transfer your files from the old drive, to the replacement, is100% wrong. Under the terms of Dell's warranty, the recovery and installation of data files and folders is your responsibility.
Regards to recovering the files and folders, you could try installing the 'Failed' hard drive in an USB powered external enclosure and attach it to a working computer and see if you can transfer the files and folders, or after you have installed new hard drive and Vista and it's working to your satisfaction, install the 'Failed' drive as the secondary and see if you transfer the data to the new primary drive, for this a second SATA data cable would be needed.
Note. Only data files and folders can be transfered, all programmes and applications must reinstalled from their discs, or downloaded from the publishers website.
I believe that you have to return the failed hard drive back to Dell, within a certain period of time, otherwise you could be charged for it.
Thanks for you reply.
I have a feeling you are probably right. I do not believe I will take a chance on something that is working well.
I make an image every week and keep nine images so I can go back up to two months.
I always make new images, not incremental. Also, I do not do other work on the computer until the image is finished.
Hi Bev,
Was wondering pretty much the same thing as you have mentioned above.
I have a complete HD (Disk0) acronis image, then if I restore it, will the Dell Recovery partition work? I would think it would, correct me if I'm wrong.
Now, if I have a recovery drive image and restored that image only, my guess would be that it wouldn't work (due to the many reports in various sites saying it won't). My question, do you think a 'startup repair' could enable it again? Or is this wishful thinking.
I was thinking about trying to get it working again. If 'recovery' is in a un-useable state do you think it is resonable to just rely on my image backups?
Thanks,
Dave
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Inspiron 530s, Intel Core2 E7200, 6 GB DDR2 800MHz, 500GB SATA II 7200RPM, 22" Widescreen LCD w/2 MP Webcam,Radeon HD4650, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, eSATA port
Dave.
It has worked on both my 8400's and 530MT and a friend's Vostro 200 system.
Bev,
Thanks for the reply.
I'll try it soon.
dave
If you have a dell computer which is after September 2005 with XP on it. You need to press Ctrl + F11 as soon as the system starts. If you have the Dell computer with Vista installed on it then you need to press F8 to reach to Advanced Boot Menu. There you need to select the option Repair your computer. Then you need to select the keyboard layout (Type 1 and then press enter). Then log in on your user account (Make sure that is an Administrator Account). Then choose the option Dell Factory Image Restore. If you have the HP Computer then the Recovery has two option one is Destructive Recovery (Data Loss) and Non - Destructive (Data Back-up). You just need to Press F11 as soon as the computer restart. Then follow the on screen instruction and choose the option accordingly.
saheedbaksh If you have a dell computer which is after September 2005 with XP on it. You need to press Ctrl + F11 as soon as the system starts. If you have the Dell computer with Vista installed on it then you need to press F8 to reach to Advanced Boot Menu. There you need to select the option Repair your computer. Then you need to select the keyboard layout (Type 1 and then press enter). Then log in on your user account (Make sure that is an Administrator Account). Then choose the option Dell Factory Image Restore. If you have the HP Computer then the Recovery has two option one is Destructive Recovery (Data Loss) and Non - Destructive (Data Back-up). You just need to Press F11 as soon as the computer restart. Then follow the on screen instruction and choose the option accordingly.
That is not correct, Dell's PC Restore by Symantec utility was install in either Dimension or Inspiron systems, with factory installed XP, that were shipped after 7.16.2004.