My OS disk is now D. Laptop keeps on restarting.

Cash · 10 Jan 2013

Greetings,

I have a Dell Inspiron 15R 5520 running Windows Home Premium x64. I recently tried a key my friend gave me to upgrade to Ultimate. When I found out it was blocked, I resorted to Windows Loader and this happened. I know I shouldn't have done that and I'd like to revert back to the out of box state.

My problem is that my OS disk is now on D. My recovery disc(which is hidden) is now set as primary on C. My laptop keeps on restarting and I couldn't even get the menu to come up by pressing F8. Any ideas how I can fix this? I've tried settings on BIOS and there's nothing I can do to solve it. I think it's booting C drive but C contains my hidden recovery partition.

Before

C - OS

After

C - Hidden Recovery Disk
D - OS

I checked by running my WinXP disc and getting to the point where you have to format and partition drives. It says C is set as Primary but it contains my recovery disk.

EDIT: I then recently performed this tutorial: Partition - Mark as Active. I marked the recovery disk as inactive as well. Then when I restarted, it said bootmgr was missing. press ctrl alt del. Then I performed this tut: Bootmgr is missing - Fix

gregrocker · 10 Jan 2013

What are you judging the drive letter change by? In WinRE drive letters are different than in Windows. Do you have blue screen non-geniune lockout message? That can be a slipped drive letter corrected using Paragon Rescue -change drive letters

Otherwise wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command then Clean Reinstall using the steps to rescue your files if necessary.

Activate Win7 with a legal product key which came with PC or you buy retail, and refrain from further criminal activity.

Cash · 11 Jan 2013

gregrocker said:

What are you judging the drive letter change by? In WinRE drive letters are different than in Windows. Do you have blue screen non-geniune lockout message? That can be a slipped drive letter corrected using Paragon Rescue -change drive letters

Otherwise wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command then Clean Reinstall using the steps to rescue your files if necessary.

Activate Win7 with a legal product key which came with PC or you buy retail, and refrain from further criminal activity.

I did a clean reinstall of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I also installed all drivers for it. Everything's fine now but I'd like the out of box state so my mind will be at ease. I suspected that the recovery partition isn't recognized because it was created by dell datasafe. I downloaded and installed dell datasafe. I was right. When I open the program and chose restore, it shows me that I have a restore point to June 26, 2012 which was I assume, the out of box state. Also, the recover disk is now hidden and back to it's normal state. One last problem below. When I proceed to restore, it restarts and takes me to system recovery.

Mine looks like this now:
https://i.imgur.com/6uEur.png

It should have this:
https://i.imgur.com/gOnXB.jpg

How can I restore the option on the second image? I think that's the only thing I'm missing so I can restore the recovery disk to C.

theog · 11 Jan 2013

Boot the DVD & open a Command Prompt.

1. Click Command Prompt from the System Recovery Options window.
2. In the Administrator window, type the following lines, pressing <Enter> after each line.
path d:\windows;d:\windows\system32
d:
CD Tools
PCRestore
3. In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.
4. In the Confirm Data Deletion window, click to select Yes, reformat hard drive and restore system software to factory condition, and then click Next. The message Factory image successfully restored! appears when the process is complete.
5. Click Finish to restart the system.

Cash · 11 Jan 2013

In case somebody encounters the same problem, this is what I did to restore using Dell DataSafe Image Restore. This is ofcourse assuming that your recovery partition is untouched and undamaged.

1.) Downloaded and Installed my original OS version. Windows 7 Home Premium x64 in my case.
2.) Installed all necessary drivers.
3.) Installed Dell DataSafe software.
4.) Made a backup using my USB Flash Drive.
5.) Restored using the bootable flash drive.

Problem over. Thanks for all the help. Do not rely on Dell's support even if they can help with basic stuff. They even tried to refer me to this website for help.

gregrocker · 11 Jan 2013

Thanks for reporting back. But per Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 did you allow all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates to run after enabling Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) first before importing any drivers?

Win7 is not XP, but the first driver-complete OS. It will decide what drivers it wants and should not be second guessed unless issues present that point to a driver - which we can help you determine using Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

Since you're doing the Clean Reinstall there's no need to use Dells Datasafe crapware since Win7 has built-in backup imaging which can reimage your customized installation in 20 minutes to the OS/Programs partition, while your data can be waiting safe and current in its own data partition. Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
System Image Recovery
Library - Include a Folder - Windows 7 Forums - copy Users folders to separate data partition, rightclick each to add to related Library, delete User folder content on C but leave it in the Library to monitor if anything lands in it.

Cash · 11 Jan 2013

After I did a clean re-install, I ran dell's image restore thing and now it's in the out of box state. What do you recommend?

gregrocker · 11 Jan 2013

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand.

Did you say you did a Clean Reinstall and then ran Factory Recovery over it?

Why would you even do the Clean Reinstall then if you run Factory Recovery to wipe it out with all the bloatware?

Cash · 11 Jan 2013

gregrocker said:

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand.

Did you say you did a Clean Reinstall and then ran Factory Recovery over it?

Why would you even do the Clean Reinstall then if you run Factory Recovery to wipe it out with all the bloatware?

I didn't trust the drivers I downloaded and installed. I thought I'd trust the drivers Dell installed with it. I just uninstalled all the bloatware again and reinstalled software that I need.

EDIT: I had to reinstall because the laptop wouldn't boot, then I reinstalled dell datasafe and ran the factory recovery.

gregrocker · 11 Jan 2013

Did you read what I wrote about drivers? Are you under the impression Win7 is the same as XP? It is not. It is the first driver-complete OS. In Win8 you dont' even interact with drivers - it's all done in the background - which are advances that were developed in Win7.

I would start over and get the perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. You had these steps in hand but for some reason ignored them. Why would you ask for our advice and then ignore it, especially in a specialty for which we are the top resource on the web?

If you decide to stick with the bloatware install then at least Clean Up Factory Bloatware