M15x Recovery Partition Help

Hello NBR! I've been a long time viewer but this will be my first post.

I received my M15x last August and it ran fine for a few months. But, after a while, I guess I had some sort of registry issues or a virus that couldn't be detected by my SpyWare Doctor and I frantically reached for the recovery disk that shipped with my system. Now, I hadn't been viewing these forums at the time and popped the disk in without creating a backup cd/usb (had i known, i wouldve created it the instant i received my system).

The disk installed a clean Windows 7 64bit and erased all of my AW stuff. I know that i can just install all the needed drivers (in a specific order) and pictures, etc. and be on my way, but I would much rather have the original factory image restored. From reading quite a few of the threads on these forums, i've concluded that this is ONLY possible if my original recovery partition (of 14.65GB) is still in tact.

Now heres my question: what do I do next? My recovery partition is in tact (i checked through Control Panel-> Aministrative Tools-> Computer Management-> Disk Management) but when I press F8 during the system's boot, the recovery partition or the image file it asks for isn't seen/recognized. Should/can i just move the recovery partition onto an external HDD and connect it during the time it asks for the "image file"? Or, is there another method for solving my predicament?

I highly appreciate any help and thank you guys in advance.

 

No one knows the answer to this? I really need this computer soon so quick replies would really be appreciated.

 

Start here: It's all in there somewhere, but I'm trying to find you something a little better organized. You may need to go into Disk Management and set the Recovery Partition to Active so it can be accessed. Also, use F8 at the boot screen, which give you the Computer Repair or Restore option.

Thread how recover windows from recovery partition on Alienware m11x | Dell Community Forum | BoardReader

Recovery Partition - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

Restore C Drive from Recovery partition : Windows, Windows 7, AlienWare, Partition, Recovery, Dell, Respawn, Backup (requires signing up for 30 day free trial)

 

Thanks Revelator
Ill read through those now and try them out. Ill post my situation after.

 

I tried backing up the recovery partition onto my external hard drive, then using the image file from my external HDD when the "Restore from Image File" prompted for it. Nothing happened... I'm back at the same place I was before I did the restoring using the image.
The first two links didn't work for me and I can't see the third one due to the requierment of a credit card to view the answer (I'm only 16 and don't have a cc). Can anyone maybe post what the answer is if you can see it?
Also, I noticed that I don't have the option for using Dell Datasafe to restore to factory in the F8 menu. Just the normal system restore and restore from an image file.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong but isn't pressing F8 (or F12 i don't remember) bring u to a screen which has the option to restore your hdd to the factory setting? I think that option would solve your problem :-/

 

It was like that before I inserted the "Recovery" disk that was shipped with my system. I don't have option anymore and need to know if I can return my system to factory settings since my Recovery Partition is still in tact.

 

Oh so that's what happened. Sorry i didn't read through your post. I remember seeing sth like this in this forum... lemme check

Here:

also, try this:

Oh, and the recovery partition in your laptop may not be OEM but Recovery, but the process is the same

Also, u may want to try Acronis Disk Director to set the recovery partition active but i'm not sure the trial ver allows u to do that :|

 

I tried your quoted method and it didn't work. I'm downloading the Alienrespawn from the link you put up (Alvin posted it in that thread); but, i don't know what to do after I download alienrespawn.

 

Alright, I installed the AlienRespawn, ran it, and went to the "Restore Your Entire System to a Previous Date or to the Factory State" option in the "Restore" tab. It told me it would restore to factory [stated the exact date and time I first turned the system on], restarted, and took me to the f8 menu with the options to restore, image restore, etc.. Unfortunately, the option for a Dell Data Safe/ AlienRespawn Factory Restore were not there. Any ideas?

 

Those links (which work fine for me) offer the basic approach you find everywhere. My problem is that I replaced the original HDD with a SSD and a clean W7 installation, so don't have the recovery partition on the current active drive. Consequently, there's not much way for me to test anything. I dug out the old 500GB HDD and connected it up. The Recovery partition (14.65GB) is there, along with a separate OEM partition (39GB). Tried the same thing you did, copying the recovery partition contents to CD and tried to use it to supply the restore image, with the same result. Made the 500GB HDD the boot drive and then tried to do the F8 routine to get to the recovery partition on the old drive. For whatever reasons, it would not start the repair process -- would not even go into the F8 process; just hung as long as I pressed F8 and then started W7 the moment I let up. So I've been unable to find a procedure that will work in your circumstances, but based on what I've seen, there's bound to be one. Sorry. If a revelation occurs, I'll let you know.

 

I retried the method ElectricTurtle posted using OEM as the partition rather than the 14GB partition (thinking I had originally chosen the wrong partition). My system fell into an endless loop of rebooting and appearing at a diognostics screen (i couldn't enter windows at all). I ended up having to do another clean install of Windows 7 because the computer was basically a $2,000 brick had i not done so. I appreciate all of the effort and work Revelator and Turtle put into helping me out. Ill contact Dell tomorrow (again) and see what they can do. If you guys can figure anything else out, ide appreciate that you guys post them here because im sure other newbies like me are also experiencing this.

 

Bummer. On the other hand, you'll end up with a better system than a factory restore would give you.

 

edit: Didn't read the previous post, my bad

 

Sevan. I may be completely wrong, but this worked for my inspiron 9300, when you get the boot screen press ctrl F11. This SHOULD take you directly to Dell's/symantec recovery partition. From there you SHOULD bd able to restore to out of box settings. Hope this helps. Received my m15x yesterday but haven't had time to play with it yet! I hope to create a USB respawn as soon as I get a spare hour lol.

 

sevan04

Can you use AlienRespawn to create an AlienRespawn recovery media, which is either 2 DVDs or USB stick? Restart your system and boot up to one of these recovery media. Then, AlienRespawn should be able to restore your system.

 

I tried that and it didnt work.

Anyways, my problem was solved ! I contacted Dell and spoke to an AW Tech who gave me step by step directions to completely erase everything with the recovery disk and delete all of my partitions (turns out, the reason I couldnt get the drivers/downloads from Dell's website to work correctly was because the original files werent completely removed). He then took control of my system after the complete reformat through the Alien Contact and downloaded/installed all of the drivers and software i needed to be back at factory. The tech also instructed me to use Windows' back up software already in my win 7 and I created a back up of all of my files/settings and a system image to boot from if anything were to happen.

Once again, thanks to everyone who contributed and gave their time and effort to help solve my problem. NBR Alienware Forum is AWESOME.

 

Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

This may prove helpful for those in a similar problem-related scenario.

 

Glad u're happy with the solution but loosing the recovery partition is somewhat unpleasant to me