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Dell's Recovery Partitions
I recently set up (actually reset) an Inspiron 1440 laptop with Windows 7 x64 Home Premium using the recovery partition and some of Microsoft's arcane tools. This was sort of slick, because everything including hardware drivers, Dell Dock and other bloatware were restored to the system in about 7 minutes.
Does anyone know how universal the Dell Windows 7 recovery partitions are and how extensively the driver sets are? Does Dell generate specific recovery partitions for specific models or groups of like models? I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Ben Myers |
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers
wrote: I recently set up (actually reset) an Inspiron 1440 laptop with Windows 7 x64 Home Premium using the recovery partition and some of Microsoft's arcane tools. This was sort of slick, because everything including hardware drivers, Dell Dock and other bloatware were restored to the system in about 7 minutes. Does anyone know how universal the Dell Windows 7 recovery partitions are and how extensively the driver sets are? Does Dell generate specific recovery partitions for specific models or groups of like models? I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Ben Myers In the not too distant pass they were model specific. Can't speek for current models. |
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers
wrote: I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Good thinking. Several years back SWMBO's Vostro had a major lockup and lost the plot - under warranty. The (offshore) support clown stepped us through what he called a "recovery" process, and in the process nuked the entire hard drive. Queried him and he said "yes, that's the only way to recover" so we lost whatever benefit the recovery partition may have provided. During the reinstallation process I cursed the lack of that partition. |
#4
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 11:11:31 PM UTC-5, who where wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers wrote: I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Good thinking. Several years back SWMBO's Vostro had a major lockup and lost the plot - under warranty. The (offshore) support clown stepped us through what he called a "recovery" process, and in the process nuked the entire hard drive. Queried him and he said "yes, that's the only way to recover" so we lost whatever benefit the recovery partition may have provided. During the reinstallation process I cursed the lack of that partition. Now I'm just trying to figure out how widely I can use it. I'm gonna guess that it can be used with any Dell that has a Win 7 Home Premium sticker and with enough memory to make 64-bit worthwhile. Worst that ought to happen is that some of the drivers will need to be downloaded and installed. I thought that it was pretty cool that it took only 7 minutes to parse-and-copy the whole WIM file from the recovery partition to the C: drive. After that, you reboot, and Win 7 contemplates its navel while installing hardware drivers, I think. I suppose the really worst thing that could happen is that I copy with WIM file to the C: drive and get a BSOD for my efforts. If that happens, I can always revert back to my handy dandy DVD that installs any Win 7 x64 version, but requires the product key, activation and driver installation, a time-consuming process... Ben Myers |
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:16:46 AM UTC-5, Ben Myers wrote:
On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 11:11:31 PM UTC-5, who where wrote: On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers wrote: I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Good thinking. Several years back SWMBO's Vostro had a major lockup and lost the plot - under warranty. The (offshore) support clown stepped us through what he called a "recovery" process, and in the process nuked the entire hard drive. Queried him and he said "yes, that's the only way to recover" so we lost whatever benefit the recovery partition may have provided. During the reinstallation process I cursed the lack of that partition. Now I'm just trying to figure out how widely I can use it. I'm gonna guess that it can be used with any Dell that has a Win 7 Home Premium sticker and with enough memory to make 64-bit worthwhile. Worst that ought to happen is that some of the drivers will need to be downloaded and installed. I thought that it was pretty cool that it took only 7 minutes to parse-and-copy the whole WIM file from the recovery partition to the C: drive. After that, you reboot, and Win 7 contemplates its navel while installing hardware drivers, I think. I suppose the really worst thing that could happen is that I copy with WIM file to the C: drive and get a BSOD for my efforts. If that happens, I can always revert back to my handy dandy DVD that installs any Win 7 x64 version, but requires the product key, activation and driver installation, a time-consuming process... Ben Myers I forgot to add that flash memory sticks are so inexpensive these days, sort of like Skittles or potato chips. I usually get them 5 at a time, use them for various purposes including Win7 x86 and x64 installation, giving people data backed up from a decaying hard drive, and on and on. I ordered 5 16GB sticks last week from Amazon for $9.50 apiece (free shipping), and this Sunday's Staples flyer had them for $9.95 + tax, with 32GB for $19.95. But the nearest Staples store did not have the 32GB in stock... Ben |
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
"Ben Myers" wrote in message ... On Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:16:46 AM UTC-5, Ben Myers wrote: On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 11:11:31 PM UTC-5, who where wrote: On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers wrote: I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Good thinking. Several years back SWMBO's Vostro had a major lockup and lost the plot - under warranty. The (offshore) support clown stepped us through what he called a "recovery" process, and in the process nuked the entire hard drive. Queried him and he said "yes, that's the only way to recover" so we lost whatever benefit the recovery partition may have provided. During the reinstallation process I cursed the lack of that partition. Now I'm just trying to figure out how widely I can use it. I'm gonna guess that it can be used with any Dell that has a Win 7 Home Premium sticker and with enough memory to make 64-bit worthwhile. Worst that ought to happen is that some of the drivers will need to be downloaded and installed. I thought that it was pretty cool that it took only 7 minutes to parse-and-copy the whole WIM file from the recovery partition to the C: drive. After that, you reboot, and Win 7 contemplates its navel while installing hardware drivers, I think. I suppose the really worst thing that could happen is that I copy with WIM file to the C: drive and get a BSOD for my efforts. If that happens, I can always revert back to my handy dandy DVD that installs any Win 7 x64 version, but requires the product key, activation and driver installation, a time-consuming process... Ben Myers I forgot to add that flash memory sticks are so inexpensive these days, sort of like Skittles or potato chips. I usually get them 5 at a time, use them for various purposes including Win7 x86 and x64 installation, giving people data backed up from a decaying hard drive, and on and on. I ordered 5 16GB sticks last week from Amazon for $9.50 apiece (free shipping), and this Sunday's Staples flyer had them for $9.95 + tax, with 32GB for $19.95. But the nearest Staples store did not have the 32GB in stock... Ben Ben, How did you make the copy? Is there another way besides the clone/image type? Thanks, Ellen |
#7
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Dell's Recovery Partitions
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 4:49:43 AM UTC-5, Ellen Hall wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message ... On Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:16:46 AM UTC-5, Ben Myers wrote: On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 11:11:31 PM UTC-5, who where wrote: On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:38:08 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers wrote: I figured I might as well copy the rcovery partition onto an NTFS-formatted flash stick, because it may come in handy sometime... Good thinking. Several years back SWMBO's Vostro had a major lockup and lost the plot - under warranty. The (offshore) support clown stepped us through what he called a "recovery" process, and in the process nuked the entire hard drive. Queried him and he said "yes, that's the only way to recover" so we lost whatever benefit the recovery partition may have provided. During the reinstallation process I cursed the lack of that partition. Now I'm just trying to figure out how widely I can use it. I'm gonna guess that it can be used with any Dell that has a Win 7 Home Premium sticker and with enough memory to make 64-bit worthwhile. Worst that ought to happen is that some of the drivers will need to be downloaded and installed. I thought that it was pretty cool that it took only 7 minutes to parse-and-copy the whole WIM file from the recovery partition to the C: drive. After that, you reboot, and Win 7 contemplates its navel while installing hardware drivers, I think. I suppose the really worst thing that could happen is that I copy with WIM file to the C: drive and get a BSOD for my efforts. If that happens, I can always revert back to my handy dandy DVD that installs any Win 7 x64 version, but requires the product key, activation and driver installation, a time-consuming process... Ben Myers I forgot to add that flash memory sticks are so inexpensive these days, sort of like Skittles or potato chips. I usually get them 5 at a time, use them for various purposes including Win7 x86 and x64 installation, giving people data backed up from a decaying hard drive, and on and on. I ordered 5 16GB sticks last week from Amazon for $9.50 apiece (free shipping), and this Sunday's Staples flyer had them for $9.95 + tax, with 32GB for $19.95. But the nearest Staples store did not have the 32GB in stock... Ben Ben, How did you make the copy? Is there another way besides the clone/image type? Thanks, Ellen Ellen, I keep HiRen's CD (Revision 15.1) around for many useful tasks. HiRen is a bootable live Windows XP with a bunch of useful tools on it. First, I reformatted the flash stick as an NTFS, not FAT32. Next, I booted HiRen, which allowed me to see the recovery partition drive letter. Then I selected all files in the recovery partition and copied them to the flash drive. Took maybe 30 minutes to copy it all. What you end up with is not bootable by itself. There is some other software you need to boot the system and then use Microsoft's imagex (in the Windows Automated Installation Kit) to put the software back on the C: drive, and that's what I also used repair the Inspiron 1440, too. Get HiRen 15.2 he http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ When Staples did not have the 32GB flash sticks in stock, I ordered them from Amazon at the same price, no sales tax, no shipping charge... Ben .... Ben |
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