A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » System Manufacturers & Vendors » Dell Computers
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Useful info about recovery partitions, Dell and other



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old September 4th 13, 06:54 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Ben Myers[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 479
Default Useful info about recovery partitions, Dell and other

Whether Dell or another brand, most all computers today come with recovery partitions to save the manufacturers from including another 10 cent item in the package with a system. Also because Steveie Ballmer prefers it that way.

So you get the system and the first thing you are supposed to do is create some recovery DVDs to someday restore the system back to its factory state. But most unwashed computer buyers never do this.

The recovery partition follows a format standardized by Micro$oft. So my good experience yesterday with a cheap crappy Toshiba and an even cheaper and crappier Toshiba hard drive should work for Dell and other systems, too.

The Toshiba hard drive showed a few hundred reallocated sectors in its SMART data, so the owner could see that the drive was failing. Nevertheless, I tried to clone the drive to a brand new one using Clonezilla. Clonezilla did the best it could, successfully copying two of the three partitions on the system. Not the boot partition, which was simply too hosed to clone, but the RECOVERY partition. So I had a new drive with a recovery partition on it.

What next? Run a utility to unhide the recovery partition and set it as the active partition. Then try to boot the system. This worked. The system booted up to the Toshiba recovery partition and I was able to restore the system back to its factory settings, about 1000x easier than installing Win 7 from scratch and getting/adding all the Toshiba drivers. Because this particular crappy Toshiba had the wonderful AMD 1.3GHz dual core CPU, recovery took a couple of hours, but I did not care because it ran perfectly well all by itself and I could go away and do other things. Last step was to install iTunes and copy 2+GB of iTunes music from the not-yet-failed but really crappy Toshiba hard drive.

You might think I am not favorable to Toshiba laptops. You are right. Hope this helps someone else in a similar bind... Ben Myers
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Dell's Recovery Partitions Ben Myers[_4_] Dell Computers 6 November 16th 12 07:23 AM
Does the recovery partition restore ALL partitions Ken[_11_] Dell Computers 1 July 9th 08 04:14 AM
BACKUP & RECOVERY: Please share your strategies + software product(s) you prefer (MBR, NTLDR, PARTITIONS, DISK IMAGES etc.) MISS CHIEVOUS Cdr 8 November 22nd 07 05:54 PM
BACKUP & RECOVERY: Please share your strategies + software product(s) you prefer (MBR, NTLDR, PARTITIONS, DISK IMAGES etc.) MISS CHIEVOUS Storage (alternative) 7 November 22nd 07 05:54 PM
reading stranded clusters and FAT tables / data recovery / large partitions David R Wille Storage & Hardrives 3 December 31st 04 10:30 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 07:12 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.