1340 Partition

What is stored on the recovery partition and how do I use it? Do I really even need it?

 

It's an image on the partition of your system in a how it was shipped to you state. So if you have any problems which you can't fix you can use the restore to get your pc back to as it was when you first received it, and yes it's good to have.

To use it do the following to complete the process.


1 Turn on the computer.

2 As the computer starts, press F8 on the keyboard until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears on the screen.
Note:
You must press F8 before the Windows logo appears on the screen. If you press F8 after the Windows logo appears on the screen, the Advanced Boot Options menu will not appear on the screen. If you do not see the Advanced Boot Options menu, restart the computer, and then repeat this step until you see the menu on the screen.

3 Press the Down Arrow on the keyboard to select Repair Your Computer on the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then press Enter.

4 Specify the language settings that you want, and then click Next.

5 Log in as a user who has administrative credentials, and then click OK.

6 Click Dell Factory Image Restore.

7 In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.

8 Click to select the Yes, reformat hard drive and restore system software to factory condition check box.

9 Click Next.
The computer is restored to the default factory configuration.

10 When the restore operation is completed, click Finish to restart the computer.

The software is now installed as it was when the computer was first received.

 

To simplify Dell_boy's (excellent) information, the recovery partition contains data that will let you reinstall Windows the way it was when you first turned on the computer. During boot up, press F8 repeatedly to bring up the advanced boot options, and you can select the option to repair your computer. This will guide you through reinstalling Windows from this recovery partition.

To answer your next question, you don't need it, although some find it more convenient than using disks. I erased my recovery partition because I would rather reinstall Windows from scratch from the DVD on a fresh hard drive, without all the factory-installed bloatware and outdated drivers.

It's entirely up to you whether or not you want to keep it. Personally, I would rather have those few GB of disk space and just reinstall from the disk, but there are plenty of people who would say the opposite; that it's only a few GB and it's easier to not worry about the disks.

 

If your going to erase the partition on your Dell Studio XPS 1340 make sure you have the Facial Recognition software for the webcam as thats one bit of bloatware you actually need and it's not on the Dell website to down load, it's pre-loaded onto the system and it's in the partition. Thats why there's so many people asking for the software in another thread because they erased the partition. Contact Dell and get them to send you the facial recognition software if your going to do a re-install from scratch.

The only bloatware Dell put on the 13 I had from them was a 30 day trial of McAfee and I just used their removal tool to completely remove it. A full list of anti-virus removal tools is available on the eset website so if yours comes with mcafee or norton and your not happy with using them then the removal tools for them are here http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN146

As for driver updates, your going to have to go onto the Dell website to get the latest anyway. You can either use your web browser to go onto the Dell website to find the drivers for your system or use Dell Support to do the same, it makes no difference.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the help. I was actually able to get the facial recognition software from that my dell downloads site that someone had posted and it worked fine. I recently wiped clean and used the discs. How would I go about removing the partition WITHOUT formatting and erasing data? Do I need Partition Magic? Is there a free one?

 

Well, you would have to delete that partition...you could do that within Windows maybe using the built-in partition manager, or use a program like gParted, Partition Magic, or any Windows Install Disc.

 

But how would I actually go about merging that space with the C drive?

 

Also, why is the partition only using 7gb out of 15gb?

 

Anyone?....

 

Bump.......

 

Annnyyyoonnnne

 

on my sxps 16 i deleted my partition and got back the space.

i found vista 64 compatible program that successfully moved the os partition called "easeus partition master."

it took somewhere between 2-3 hours to move the partition. once the os partition was moved to the left of the unallocated space vista's partition manager can then simply expand over it.

 

But that program isn't free. Could you just delete it in the disk management tool?