How Do I restore this Recovery Partition on my Dell

DonM123 · 18 Nov 2017

This is a picture of my dell recovery partition. its on a spare drive that was cloned.
Also a picture of the my system details. F8 did not allow me access to this partion. nor did a win 7 pro install disk nor did any of the disk that came with dell computer make it work. Its there and I want to restore but I dont get how. Can I make a DVD from this recovery partition that I can use to restore windows and its drivers.. ?? this would be so great to know how to do. ! Thank YOu !

torchwood · 18 Nov 2017

Hi Don,

pretty sure its because
a) its a clone
b) Its not normally on C but a hidden drive letter - known by the F8 option, its looking in the wrong place

From your other post - Id opt for a clean install, bonus no bloatware.
When installed and updated then create an Image NOT a clone
(most her use Macrium Free)

Roy

billmcct · 18 Nov 2017

I'm confused??? If your booting to this drive (whether it's cloned or not) you should be able to access the recovery through F8 or startup options and recover that drive. If this is plugged as an external drive you can't recover the boot drive from it.

Bill

torchwood · 18 Nov 2017

Hi Bill,

The Built in Dell recovery option is looking for a specific drive letter certainly NOT C
Its also usually hidden but accessable via disk management
Must admit its an odd setup

Roy

billmcct · 18 Nov 2017

On all the laptops I have here the recovery partition is D:\ don't know about a desktop but should be the same and I agree certainly not C:\. The way I read the Op the recovery is on an external drive. Recovery usually only looks to the boot drive for the partition.

Bill

Barman58 · 18 Nov 2017

I've always found Dell laptop recovery partitions to be not allocated a drive letter, Indeed most of them I've setup over the years have used D: for the optical drive

What you could try is to remove the letter assignment and reboot and then the F8 - if still not working use some disk utility (Partition Wizard?) to set the drive active and reboot althogh some later dells did go for a two partition strategy, small boot partition near front of drive and larger actual partition at the end - in this case you need the small partition active

DonM123 · 19 Nov 2017

Why am I seeing this ? Who posted this ? and why is it only showing up in my chrome browser and not in firefox ?
And does this have anything to do with chrome and its tracking abilities. ?

Barman58 · 19 Nov 2017

It's simply an ad inserted by google that helps to pay for the free access for members here - it only shows when you are not logged in

SIW2 · 19 Nov 2017

There should be a file called factory.wim in the Recovery drive. Probabaly inside the "dell" folder.

It can be applied using WinNtSetup or any tool that can handle .wim files.

WinNtSetup is in my boot media under start menu\programs\install

My boot media:

17514x64v5.iso

Megahertz07 · 19 Nov 2017

Normally you can launch the Factory recover and make the Recovery disk from BIOS.