Computer Hardware Help → Re: Factory restore on a Dell

What about Ctrl-F11? We had a brand new Dell Optiplex XE that took a bad update, and proceeded to go into a perpetual BSoD fit.

We tried F8, Ctrl-F11, and everything else, and couldn't access the recovery partition. These computers had SSD Drives in them, but when looking on another system, they had a recovery partition.

We ended up just reinstalling Win7 from a DVD and was done with it.

My godfather has a dell latitude and had a corrupt partition and was wondering where his dell disks were.

I told him dell doesnt ship disks anymore, nor does hp, gateway 2000, ibm, lenowvo, acer, asus, and toshiba and sony, and sometimes they charge outrageous prices like $80 and up for recovery dvd disks

I helped him make a recovery dvd set with his dell and we discovered you have to press F8 after the dell logo and BEFORE the windows logo for it to launch the recovery partition, which is a special menu of his bios. and told him to make the disks cus sometimes a virus can wipe out his hard drive including the recovery partition and if that happens hes screwed and he came close to being screwed he had a majour virus but thank god it didnt affect his recovery partiiton

No idea what Ctrl-F11 is for. Possibly some (older?) Dell systems use it as some kind of bootstrapping shim (keep reading, re: 4th partition).

I know that systems like the Dell Inspiron 1545 actually have 4 partitions: the main OS partition (meaning where all your data is, e.g. "your C: drive"), the recovery partition (usually with the NTFS volume label RECOVERY), a FAT16 partition for test utilities and so on (I forget what uses this), and an encrypted NTFS partition that is actually set to bootable (at least it was on the laptops I've looked at). I can't explain the last partition. There is this site except most of the information I've read there appears to be from Dell systems made in the early-to-mid 2000s, not present-day. They differ now.

There's a ton of possibilities as to why pressing F8 did nothing. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 different reasons, and that's just for starters. Not enough info for me to diagnose.

But I'll make it clear to folks: what honours F8 is the Windows bootstraps/bootloader not the PC BIOS. It's the same F8 menu you've seen in the past (to get into Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP "Safe Mode", "Safe Mode (with networking)", etc.).

So if your bootstraps are messed up (requiring use of bcdboot.exe to fix), or the LBAs handling the bootstraps are unreadable (bad sectors, etc.), its possible you won't even get to the F8 menu, or once you make it there choosing "Repair Your Computer" does nothing. Again: I wish they'd just include a DVD.

I think you have called it. When they installed the Win8 Preview the bootloader was changed.

This machine has a 250 gb hard drive according to Dell. In Disk Management, I see it listed as Disk0, Basic, 232.88 GB. It shows a 39 MB OEM partition, a 14.65 GB Recovery partition, and a 218.20 GB OS partition.

The Recovery partition was hidden so I assigned it a drive letter to see what is in it. It is NTFS. Status shows as: Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

The OS partition is NTFS. Status shows as: Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

The OS partition is C: The other partitions did not have a drive letter, but after assigning one, the Recovery partition is F:

I think that the OEM partition should be the boot partition.

I am unsure how to edit the boot files to boot from the OEM partition and at this point, I don't think that will remedy my problem.

my daughter has a dell, less than a year old. gets blue screen. dell determined that there were a lot of corrupt os files.they want 267 dollars for a restore disk. they wouldn't even talk to me about how to access the restore partition, which is the reason i am here. she is still making payments to dell...it isn't even paid for. one would think that as long as a person owes you money, you would at least tell them how to access the restore partition. it's piss poor customer service driven by corporate greed, plain and simple.

i found out how to access the restore partition via a google search before dell could give us the answer. next time google before you call it will save u $$$

Manuals also provide that information as well as making the needed restore disks.

that would be great but i dont recall ever receiving manual for my computer, nor does my godfather on his laptop either.

Although a manual may not have come with the machine, they are always available through the Dell Support site.

nice, first they save on paper, next they save on CD-roms, whats next, your gonna have to assemble the laptop yourself?

I have yet to see a Dell not have a manual and I bought my mom a dell less than a year ago.

See my later post below. But I got install DVD's from Dell at no cost -

»support.dell.com/support ··· pcd_form

thats the same link as above bro
nice find

It's nice to know they still offer the re-install discs. I ordered a set a long time ago. For my XPS 630. One other thing that is great about them. Is that the OS disk is a bare bones install. Bloatware free.
Also have one for an old Dell XP machine.
Paul