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    No "repair" option on Dell Win7 disk?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Bily42, Sep 11, 2010.

  1. Bily42

    Bily42 Notebook Consultant

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    I had to do a complete restore for the first time on the m11xr2 yesterday because I shot myself in the foot again. :)
    And what an ordeal it was!

    Firstly, do NOT do what I did (if you can boot into your present Windows configuration) and go back to Factory Install if you have a fairly current Windows 7 backup on a usb drive. When you get booted into your fresh install, NONE of your Windows 7 Backups will be recognized on your usb drive...the software will say that it cannot find any backups even though they are THERE in plain sight on your usb drive and there is NO way to recover them.

    Secondly, if you then try to do an Acronis True Image recovery (which I did) from an Acronis boot up disk, the Acronis image will not BOOT because the Factory Install from the USB stick that you made with Alien Respawn has CHANGED the ID of the hard drive.

    Thirdly, you'd better have another Windows 7 disk around because that is all that will save you. The regular, ordinary Windows 7 disk when it boots up has a Repair Computer selection which allows you to click on it and change the ID of the hard drive so that it can then boot!

    Edit: Just to clarify, I was using an older version of Acronis True Image Recovery usb stick for my backup and recovery and that is why I had to do what is called a BCD repair - the newer Acronis 2010, apparently, will "play well with Windows 7" and its backups will not require a BCD repair.
     
    Bily42, Sep 11, 2010
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  2. MassiveOverkill

    MassiveOverkill Notebook Consultant

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    I can confirm this. I had to use my own copy of Win7 to repair my boot partition after copying the disk over to my Seagate Momentus XT.
     
    MassiveOverkill, Sep 11, 2010
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