hidden partiton recovery dell xps 420 itzmillertyme <guest[ at ]unknown-email.com> 10/11/2008 3:39:39 PM I have a Dell xps 420 desktop with the hidden recovery partition. My f8 option no longer works to recover to new (advanced boot options menu) I do not have the "repair my computer" option I once had. Can I unhide (with acronis) and boot from the recovery partition to do this? I just want to recover it back to the way it was as i received it new from dell. -- itzmillertyme

Re: hidden partiton recovery dell xps 420 Paul Montgomery <i.m.nonnymous[ at ]NOSPAMgmail.com> 10/11/2008 5:08:42 PM On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:39:39 -0500, itzmillertyme <guest[ at ]unknown-email.com> wrote: [Quoted Text] > >I have a Dell xps 420 desktop with the hidden recovery partition. >My f8 option no longer works to recover to new (advanced boot options >menu) I do not have the "repair my computer" option I once had. >Can I unhide (with acronis) and boot from the recovery partition to do >this? Nope. If you didn't make recovery discs from that partition, and you can't get into it via the normal means or into Windows, you're up that creek. If you can get into Windows, there SHOULD be an option somewhere in your Dell areas to create those discs. > I just >want to recover it back to the way it was as i received it new from >dell.

RE: hidden partiton recovery dell xps 420 Mick Murphy 10/11/2008 9:28:01 PM Contact Dell, and they will send you a Recovery disk. -- Mad Mike "itzmillertyme" wrote: [Quoted Text] > > I have a Dell xps 420 desktop with the hidden recovery partition. > My f8 option no longer works to recover to new (advanced boot options > menu) I do not have the "repair my computer" option I once had. > Can I unhide (with acronis) and boot from the recovery partition to do > this? I just > want to recover it back to the way it was as i received it new from > dell. > > > -- > itzmillertyme >

Re: hidden partiton recovery dell xps 420 itzmillertyme <guest[ at ]unknown-email.com> 10/15/2008 10:24:15 PM Okl I did it but it took 3 days of screwing around to figure it out. With the help from the folowing link 'Restoring from Restore partition without Ctrl+f11 nor restore disks. - NotebookForums.com' (http://www.notebookforums.com/thread213683.html) Download and burn this to a cd incase you need it after '_ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/ptedit.zip_' (ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/ptedit.zip) What I did since I had a second HDD installed. 1- was to install Vista on it. 2- unhid my recovery partition with Acronis I believe you can download a free trial 3- Restarted to hdd 2-- "E" drive was what was there and vista install left it as "E" 4- From within windows I formatted hdd 1 drive "C" 5- then after you locate your recovery image. (factory.wim) explore recovery drive with acronis to find it's location. mine was D:\dell\image\factory.wim 6- go to run command and type cmd enter then D: enter (recovery drive letter) 7- type "cd tools" without the quotes then enter 8- now type "imagex/apply d:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 c:\" again no quotes enter d: being the source or recovery drive and c: being the destination or where vista was originally installed on hdd 1 You will now see it recover the drive from the image file..just let it do it's thing..it'll take about 15 min. restart finish the next few steps and your good. ONLY Continue if you cannot boot to the newly installed recovery of Vista I then had to use the afforementioned download cd PTEDID boot from cd drive at startup launch ptedit you will now see a screen like the one attached change the hard drive at the top to 2 then in the boot column change 80 to 00 then go to hard drive 1 and where the 07 is in the type column move to it's boot and change from 00 to 80 this changes the startup to drive 1 your hdd 1 where you installed your new recovery of Vista remove cd and restart if pc still does not restart as mine did not you then have to restart to the setup menu and reset to factory settings I did this then my pc started and brought me to the remaining steps to finish the install. Finally my Dell back to it's factory state. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Filename: dell-tbl.gif | |Download: http://www.vistax64.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7308 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- itzmillertyme