M6400 Factory Image restore failing!!

Hi people,

I hope you can help.

After a few years of constant use, it's time to do a fresh reinstall (factory preset) on my m6400 Dell Laptop.

I have tried to utilise the supplied Dell factory Image Restore, but I cannot get it working properly.

On booting I press f8, get taken to Vista Advanced Boot Options where I go to "Repair your computer"

According to the M6400 manual (page 38) it says I should select "administrator"

But here i am only faced with either my normal log on name, and two lots of spurious numbers


I log on with my normal name "zarmple" and see the next page, and select "Windows Complete PC Restore"


but then i cant get any further as it comes up with the following


Can anyone give any help as to get around this? Or how to remedy.
Any help is really appreciated.
Thanks in advance

 

Okay well you don't have the Dell DataSafe Local Backup recovery options meaning your recovery partition is hosed. It is usually located all the way at the bottom.

You will need your Dell discs + drivers disc if you have it.

 

ouch.. that's not too good..
1) could it also be that I cant log on as Admin?
2) I have a recovery partition on my disk, is there no other way of accessing it?
3) what happens if i dont have dell discs and drivers?

thank for your reply by the way.

 

I don't use Dell's Vista, but I think that if you're booting from the factory hard drive/F8 you're supposed to see a "Dell Factory Image Restore" option on the "System Recovery Options" menu. I don't know why it's not there on your system, but if your Recovery partition is truly still intact, perhaps this might work:

Manual Recovery from a Dell Vista Recovery Image

The webpage assumes you have the Vista Reinstallation DVD, but it shouldn't matter if you don't because you've established you can still get to the "System Recovery Options" menu. The DVD is necessary only to get to that point, so skip steps 1-6 and pick it up at screen 7.


Dan Goodell

 

GENIUS! Wow. Thank you. I owe you a beer!
I will give that a go (once i am ready for a few hours of playing)

And luckily I have just rummaged around my room and amazingly found 2 DVD's:
1) Reinstallation DVD: Windows Vista 32bit
&
2) dell drivers and utilities

So it looks like I am covered.

To 100% clarify, doing it either via the method mentioned above, or via the dvd's, will it?: Scrub my hard drive and reinstall vista/laptop to it's initial state? (i really want to start from scratch with no old remnants ideally)

 

although, looking at that webpage, and the last step, it says for me to type:
d:\dell\image\factory.wim

yet i can not see "factory.wim" on the my d: at the moment..
Hopefully when i try it wont be an issue *fingers crossed*

 

Yikes...Windows Vista...

Your best bet would be to load the OS using the reinstallation DVD that you found. Erase everything that's on the computer, including extra partitions (if they don't erase, use a utility like GPartEd).

 

The two methods provide different results. Recovering via factory.wim leaves you with the contents of the C: partition exactly as it was when Dell first shipped the computer, including Dell drivers and bundled software. (Side note: only the C: partition is restored. The partition layout and recovery partition are not touched.)

Reinstalling via DVD gives you the same thing you'd get from a retail Microsoft DVD, except it's preactivated. To that you would have to manually install Dell's drivers (hence, the Drivers and Utilities CD) and factory-bundled software that may have come with the computer (Wordperfect, Works, CD/DVD burning, assorted trialware, etc.).

Either way, nothing is carried over from the current C: partition. (If installing from DVD, don't forget to do the quick-format step at the beginning of the installation process.)

You want to search whichever partition is your RECOVERY partition. In the example it is drive D:, but it could be different on yours. Double-click the recovery drive in Screen 13 and look for the dell\image subfolders.

If you can't find those subfolders, then you may not have a factory recovery image. The image is typically around 4-8 GB and occupies the bulk of the recovery partition, so if the used portion of your recovery partition is less than 1 GB then you clearly do not have a factory.wim.

 

ahh, now, there's something. On my D:RECOVERY drive its only got 900mb of data.. So im getting the feeling that something has gone awry. Looks like (when I finally get the time) it'll be a fresh reinstall from the dvd's.
then use acronis to get an image..
then do the slow task of putting all my programmes on.
joy!

Thanks for your help though. You've all been very helpful.
Beers are on me!

 

Ok, one last thing, before I take the plunge and reinstall.
Will I require a windows Code?

or will the DVD installation disk automatically do this?