Solved Restoring Laptop back to Factory settings with Toshiba supplied Discs?

[SherriBabee]

Hello,

I can't confirm the media recovery is in the proper place on my Toshiba C655D-S5086. I ordered the Discs from Toshiba last week. I have some questions b4 I get started.

1. The only changes/upgrades I made was I have the max RAM of 8gb on my system since day one. Im working with the same HDD of 320gb for now (that will be changed to SDD in the next week or so)

My questions are as follows:

1) I found over the years that their was an Update to the BIOS from what the Factory Install has. Should I update that at anytime while Im restoring the Laptop to Out of the Box status?

2) Do I have to let the Discs store the Media Recovery back on the system being I have the Discs, can't I just forget that partition and use the whole HDD drive of 320gb to gain back space ?

3) Will the system create it's own partitions?j

4) I want only 1 user on the Laptop myself being the Administrator but with a different user name, how do I go about that when the install asks you to setup a user and then later there is still a general Administrator listed as well?

Im not at home so using my families NET access, wired for now. (at home I have a seperate Modem and Router that I own.

I have all kinds of external storage including old HDD's from my desktop WinXP Prof x32 and I use a 3.0 USB hub to connect all my attachments.

Im familiar with Hiren's Boot CD as I had to use it last year to access this laptop for a forgotten PW.

Im shooting from the Hip here on what I should be asking. I have my KEY from the laptop so im good to go unless im forgetting something I should be asking.

LQQK-ing forward for some direction b4 I get started. I do have my celphone to access the group

Thank you . . .

 

[SherriBabee]

Goodmorning,

Can N E one help me? Did I post this wrong? OR am I making this more complicated than it is???

Thank you

 

[RolandJS]

"...Update to the BIOS..." I thought one only updates when hardware and/or software "demands" it. I'm not sure if an update is needed -- others can weigh in on this.

 

[RolandJS]

"...2) Do I have to let the Discs store the Media Recovery back on the system being I have the Discs, can't I just forget that partition and use the whole HDD drive of 320gb to gain back space ?..."
I think you're asking if you can eliminate the HD-based recovery partition? If yes, as long as your DVDs can reliably receive backup material and reliably restore the OS to the factory state -- some indeed have done away with that recovery partition.

 

[RolandJS]

"...4) I want only 1 user on the Laptop myself being the Administrator but with a different user name, how do I go about that when the install asks you to setup a user and then later there is still a general Administrator listed as well?..." I believe you can pick a computer name and a user name sometime during the install.

Also, considering all the good stuff you're going to be doing:
I recommend all your hard-drives and all your partitions within the hard-drives have unique names -- so you will never accidentally over-write a partition or whole HD that was not your intended target; this can easily happen from within a usb or dvd boot.

 

[dg1261]

1) I found over the years that their was an Update to the BIOS from what the Factory Install has. Should I update that at anytime while Im restoring the Laptop to Out of the Box status?

If you updated the BIOS previously, it will still be updated. The BIOS is a chip and completely separate from the hard drive or the operating system. Changing the hard drive or reinstalling the OS has no effect on the BIOS. A factory restore does not change the BIOS or undo previous BIOS flashes.

2) Do I have to let the Discs store the Media Recovery back on the system being I have the Discs, can't I just forget that partition and use the whole HDD drive of 320gb to gain back space ?

3) Will the system create it's own partitions?

I've no experience with Toshiba, but the factory recovery discs from many manufacturers are primarily intended for use in scenarios where you've lost the operating system (such as if your hard drive dies) and the entire contents of the hard drive need to be recreated. Thus, the recovery discs are designed to work with a completely blank replacement drive, and will recreate and populate all factory partitions.

I don't know what the Toshiba discs would do if they encounter a hard drive that already has partitions. If they're like other OEMs I've seen, the recovery disc will wipe the drive first so it can start with a clean slate.

Thus, you may likely end up with a factory recovery partition on the new hard drive, though you can subsequently remove it with any of the usual techniques. There may even be a Toshiba tool that will do it without requiring extra software. (That's why some OEMs put the factory Recovery partition immediately following the OS partition--it's a simple operation to delete and merge into the OS partition, whereas a Recovery partition in front of the OS partition is much more difficult to merge.)

Also, the Toshiba discs should use Toshiba's SLIC/SLP factory product key, and you shouldn't be prompted to enter your key anywhere. The key on your Windows COA sticker is different and for use in the event you use non-Toshiba reinstallation media.

4) I want only 1 user on the Laptop myself being the Administrator but with a different user name, how do I go about that when the install asks you to setup a user and then later there is still a general Administrator listed as well?

The initial OOBE ("Out-Of-Box-Experience") setup routine should ask you for your name and create an admin user account. By default, the separate "Administrator" account is hidden and does not show as a login option. It would take a subsequent registry tweak to unhide the Administrator account for it to also be a login choice.

 

[AddRAM]

Just let the recovery discs do their thing, you can play with partitions later. Just get windows up and running.

 

[SherriBabee]

Goodevening,

Thank you to RolandJS, dj1261 and AddRam for your insite and help.

Wish me luck im gonna get it going tonight. Hope to be posting from Laptop by tomorrow nite. Im quite anal when im doing technical stuff and like to get as much back up and running b4 I start browsing on my system.

Sincerely . . .

 

[SherriBabee]

GOOD NEWS,

I got my system back to Out of the Box status. But it was NOT by using the Discs I received from TOSHIBA, I couldn't get my system to Boot from the D drive. Tried several times. So I hit the 0 when restarting the system and got the Restore settings that way. It worked !

I figure I couldn't get the Boot changed to D drive cause something was messed up with my system, and actually I haven't tried to see if it works now, but I will give that a try and edit this post.

There were well over 150 updates to install and I did it in segments. I followed up with BELARC ADVISOR to verify I have all installed updates. It showed I still was short 2 updates, KB2538242 & KB2538243. I manually installed them and all is good.

Their are 68 Optional updates available but that is cause of this Line not being checked (as per a Tutorial on this site.) Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates.

Im content with the progress i've made, still Tweaking my settings and getting programs back installed at this time.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP,
Sincerely ...