If I reinstall windows on Dell XPS 15, will I lose F8 recovery?

Hey,

I got this laptop but want to format and put fresh windows.

I know that I am not suppose to delete or touch the recovery partition, but I remember for a friend with the same dell xps 15, I formatted and reinstalled windows and then the F8 recovery stopped working.

So I want to confirm before doing this, if I reinstall windows, will I still have the option to F8 and restore dell factory image?

Please let me know if you know or have put a fresh windows on your laptop and still your recovery option is there

 

As long as you do not delete / format the Recovery partition, then it should still work. If you format the whole drive, then you wipe the recovery partition as well.

 

I created recovery disks, so when I restore via those disks, will all the useless softwares also come with it?

 

Great question. I think it works exactly like a factory reset (Windows + drivers). At least that's how my HP dv6qte was when I had it over the summer. Is there any way for you to find out if you included the bloatware with the disc? Perhaps browse the contents?

 

Fwiw, just tried this on an XPS 15 that I installed a fresh Windows 7 on. F8 brings up Windows 7 "Advanced Boot Options" but Dell Recovery is not one of the options. So I guess you lose that.

Yes, my "recovery" partition is still there.

I will report back if I find a way to restore F8.

Update4:
See my detailed posts further into this thread for instructions on how to (properly) resurrect Dell's Factory Image Restore.

 

Thanks for that, thats what I thought because I did it on a friends dell xps 15 and the recovery option was gone.

Thank you, waiting for your updates

 

Same happened to me when I reinstalled vista. I deleted the partition, but I still have it on an external.

 

I was about to delete that partition (as my original drive is now in the optical bay after upgrading to SSD), when I saw this post. I'll test it out later and let you know.

 

I would also recommend a full image of the HDD to an external USB drive before you update your OS. That way you should be able to restore, then use the recovery part; if you wish to sell it. (Never a bad idea to have an alternate way to recovery to factory specs if the internal HDD fails)
Nice work PDSway

 

Whats a good software to make image?

 

Tried it out - I can see a Dell-branded recovery partition.

 

I have had good success with Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition - Overview and it is free!

 

I generally use Acronis TrueImage...

But in this case, once we restore the BCD database to include the Dell Image Restore, the next step is to replace the factory .wim file with your own image. So that if the user does "Dell factory restore" it will use your updated image. This solution will involve Microsoft utils that create the "wim" image format, hopefully that will run in the "pe" environment.

Maybe even give them the option to recover from the Dell image or your image, assuming enough space on the Recovery partition.

I'm working on this, but not much free time these days.

 

Ok, installing fresh Windows and re-linking the "Dell Factory Image Restore" is possible and actually easy. Again, it's perilous because the Dell factory image will wipe out your custom Windows install, but it's good to have. Windows 7 has a nice imaging feature and you could/should make a "System Image" of your install that can be recovered (in addition to the Dell factory image). I'll cover that in another post. And while I was at it, I also explored some other scenario's and will document additional recovery procedures.

First some background (before I forget it all). Understanding the Win7 boot manager and "pe" environment is important. I'm no expert, but here's an overview. Basically boot manager is loaded when booting a drive (specified in the boot sector). There's usually a hidden folder "\boot" containing a hidden file "BCD" which is a little database of boot config data. Microsoft did a great job with this as bootmgr can do all kinds of stuff now, very configurable. It can specify a "recovery" partition and recovery "environment". Essentially the environment is a "WinPE" "pre-installation" environment, a mini-windows that you use to install and/or recover Win7 (and other things). You can dive into it by looking at the Windows 7 WAIK. It has the WinPE environment and tools to customize it (amongst other tools like "imagex" and "dism"). Very useful stuff!

So what Dell does is they make a custom WinPE image (usually WinPE.wim). They include tools like "imagex" and their custom tool "PCRestore". They store this in their "Recovery" partition (usually drive D: ) and they config bootmgr to use this partition for recovery. So when a user boots and presses F8 (for the Win7 advanced boot menu) then selects "Repair your Computer" bootmgr loads and boots the Dell WinPE environment. This eventually presents the menu of repair options with the usual Win7 tools plus Dell's option to restore the factory image. When the user selects that PCRestore.exe gets run (which is setup in an xml file and can be set to run anything).

So to recover the factory Win7, 3 things have to take place, a) erase the target partition b) restore the factory Win7 image and c) make the target partition bootable (if not already). This is what PCRestore does in a nutshell. But you can do all these things manually as well.

Some notes, all this is as of Win7 SP1, Nov 2011. Things may change (esp. with Win8). I'm using a Dell XPS 15 (L502x, i5 cpu) with Win7 x64, a single hard drive (500gb 7200rpm) with 2 partitions, the main "OS" (drive C: ) and a small 16gb partition "Recovery" (drive D: ). My "Factory.wim" image file is about 6.5gb and takes about 11mins to restore. Recovery works even if you remove the "D:" drive letter (nice because most users don't know what to do with the "D:" drive anyway). The Recovery partition doesn't need much (or any) temp space, you can fill it up.

Dell's "Recovery" partition is quite useful and you should keep it intact unless you REALLY need the space. Of course you could move it to another drive if necessary. Remove the drive letter if it bugs you. Dell seems to have stopped making the "Diags" partition (you can run simple diagnostics in bios).

 

Once you've been using your computer for a while, it's questionable whether the Dell Recovery partition has any value. Using it returns the laptop to it's new factory state, so you'd have none of your configs, installations, etc.

Of much greater value and utility is to take a full disk image once you have your system setup the way you want. If you ever need disaster recovery or just want to roll back to a known good state, you'd restore from the image you made.

There are many good tools to do disk images and recovery. I've used Acronis True Image Home for years, I like it and rely on it. It has saved many friends' systems. This is much more useful than returning the computer to its state when it left the factory.

 

To re-link "Dell Factory Image Restore" after installing fresh Win7...

Assumptions: Single hard drive with 2 partitions: partition 1 is "C:", labeled "OS" and partition 2 is "D:" labeled "Recovery". "Recovery" is intact from Dell (rebuilding your Recovery partition is another topic). Usually "Recovery" is about 16gb and "OS" is the balance of the space.

When you prep your C: drive for fresh Win7, it doesn't matter if you format or just remove the Win7 folders. Sometimes I just delete the Win7 folders to keep any drivers or extra files Dell added. Of course you could use the extra space on D: to save these files, then format C:. There's also reasons to delete the partition and let Windows format it (to get the extra "system" partition that Win7 Ultimate makes by default).

In any case, install Win7 to drive C: and you'll find a "default" Recovery environment, usually in a hidden folder "C:\Recovery". If you run "bcdedit /enum all" from a cmd prompt, you'll see references to this Recovery environment. All you need to do is redirect this Recovery to Dells (on drive D: ). You do this with the "bcdedit" tool.

So boot into your fresh Win7 and open a cmd prompt. I open my prompt "as Administrator" but I'm not sure this is required in order to use bcdedit. Before anyone asks, to run as Administrator, find the "cmd" shortcut, right-click and choose "Run as Administrator". It opens a cmd prompt window (without restrictions).

List all your boot "objects" with "bcdedit /enum all". Note the Recovery "device", usually the last thing displayed. In my case it looks like this:

Device options
--------------
identifier {3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}
description Ramdisk Options
ramdisksdidevice partition=C:
ramdisksdipath \Recovery\3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d\boot.sdi

Note the id "{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}". You will need this for the bcdedit cmds (just copy it to clipboard).

So to redirect the Recovery device:
bcdedit /set {3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d} ramdisksdidevice partition=D:

bcdedit /set {3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d} ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi

Now you also need to fix the Recovery option in the "current" device (that which you just booted). Mine looked like this:

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}
device ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d\Winre.wim,{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}
path \windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Recovery Environment
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d\Winre.wim,{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}
systemroot \windows
nx OptIn
winpe Yes

You can see that it specifies the default Recovery environment on drive C: so to redirect that:

bcdedit /set {3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d} device ramdisk=[D:]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}

bcdedit /set {3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d} osdevice ramdisk=[D:]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}

Note the "id's" used. The first is the "id" of your C: boot partition ("{3a7b6f29-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}" in this case). Since it's "current" I'm not sure you need to specify it, but I did anyway. The second id is that of our Recovery device ("{3a7b6f2a-0f3a-11e1-8594-d1eb88fe943d}" in this case). Be CAREFUL, they are very similar numbers.

You should be done. If you run "bcdedit /enum all" you should see your handiwork and the Recovery setup now points to the Dell partition. Test it by rebooting and using F8, then "Repair your Computer" and you should once again find the "Dell Factory Image Restore" option.

You can probably kill the "C:\Recovery" folder too.

Update: Added an attachment .zip with 3 diff bcd listings: the Dell bcd, the fresh/clean Win7 bcd then the "fixed" Win7 bcd.

 

Ya, us techies would never do this, we'd just install fresh but there's many reasons to have this capability. Mostly for setting a computer for someone else, probably not a techie, as a fail safe. Also testing, selling or returning the computer.

 

So what if you can boot into the advanced boot menu and choose "Repair your Computer" but the "Dell Factory Image Restore" is missing?

Assuming your Dell Recovery partition is still intact and you booted it, you could do the bcdedit cmds to re-link the Dell Recovery environment OR you could simply choose "Command Prompt" from the repair choices.

This opens a cmd prompt with the WinPE enviroment as the current drive (usually drive X: ). Dell added a \Tools folder with PCRestore. Just change to that folder and run it:

cd \Tools
pcrestore

PCRestore will run and give the same menu as you would get if you did have the Dell Factory Image Restore option.

Note, you only get PCRestore when booting the Dell WinPE environment. If you booted another WinPE, you won't have this (unless you rolled your own with Dell's additions).

 

So what if your Dell Recovery partition is intact but you can't boot it. This would happen if your C: "OS" partition got wiped out or you installed a fresh copy of Win7.

At this point boot any WinPE environment and restore the Dell factory image "manually".

I boot from a usb drive that is the equivalent of a Win7 install dvd. When you boot this it starts up as if to install Win7 (or update) but when you get to the "Install" menu just press shift-F10. This drops you to a cmd prompt where you can do all kinds of fun stuff. You'll also need the "imagex" tool from the WAIK mentioned previously. Put that on your boot drive (or on the Dell Recovery partition), "f:\tools" in this example.

To restore your Dell factory image manually:
- prep target drive C: (format or move/erase the Win7 folders)
- restore Dell Factory image (takes 11mins or so):
f:\tools\imagex /apply d:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 c:\
- make sure C: is active/bootable (diskpart)
- repair bootsect if necessary (bootrec /fixboot)

Reboot and you should get the initial Dell Win7 install/setup.

There are many things that can go wrong, you may have different drive/partition setup, please consider this just a basic guide and you may have additional steps etc.

 

Now let's say you installed your own fresh Win7 and you want to make an image of it that the user can restore. I'm gonna actually try this and will document it here, but there's (at least) 3 ways to do it:

1) Use the Win7 "system image" tool and store the image on the D: "Recovery" partition (if there's room) or an external drive.

2) Boot into any WinPE environment with the imagex tool (as previously discussed) and "capture" an image of drive C: to a file on the D: drive. This image can be restored later with the "manual" image restore procedure already documented.

3) Use a third-party tool like Acronis TrueImage to capture (and restore) an image of your boot drive C:.

Of course you want to "capture" the image just after you install your drivers, updates, tweaks and basic apps but probably BEFORE you add tons of media files (movies, mp3's, photo's etc) so that the image is as small as possible. Typically the Dell Recovery partition has about 7gb free.

Hope this helps everyone!
-Paul

 

Excellent series of posts by PDSway--this thread is a keeper!

I particularly appreciate the approach of using the built-in bcdedit utility in post #16. It irritates me when somebody says, "Oh, it's simple, just download and install {some random, unknown third-party utility} to edit the BCD file." I'm a bit of a purist and don't like defiling my system just to complete a one-off task--especially when there are already tools built-in to do it.

I've done a lot of work on Dell's old XP recovery system and a bit of tinkering on their newer Vista/Win7 BCD-based recovery system, but hadn't determined how to relink it to the F8 menu once it was broken, so this thread provides welcome and useful information. Well done, Paul!


Dan Goodell
Inside the Dell PC-Restore System

 

I appreciate toronto's question regarding whether the Recovery partition is worth keeping, but I recommend always keeping a copy of it somewhere, though it need not necessarily be on the hard drive. Many of my clients have found it useful for returning a system to its original state, without the owner's personal software, when the computer is eventually resold or given away to someone else.

At the very least, one should simply make a whole-disk image of the virgin system with Acronis or the like and store it away for safekeeping before repartitioning the hard disk and "making it your own."

Aside: I personally don't like whole-disk images because it means you're imaging the OS twice (once as the OS partition and once as the factory.wim file in the Recovery partition), so my current practice is to capture the MBR and then image only the Utility and Recovery partitions. Rebuilding the original partitions later can be accomplished, even on a completely blank disk, by first restoring the MBR, which has the side effect of also restoring the original partition layout. The contents of the Utility and Recovery partitions are then restored from the images, and finally the OS partition is restored from factory.wim by using imagex, as PCSway has described.

When it comes time to pass a used computer on to someone else, the donor has the peace of mind that he/she is not unintentionally passing on personally-owned software, and IME the donee usually appreciates getting a computer in factory-state, without the previous owner "messing it up." New owners also appreciate getting a computer with an intact recovery system, because chances are they're not getting a reinstallation CD/DVD with it.


Dan Goodell

 

I updated the re-link post with an attachment that has the complete bcd listings (fwiw).

That's Dell's bcd, the default Win7 bcd, then the "fixed" Win7 bcd.

 

That can work. But, it's simpler to take a full disk image and restore that when needed. I recently took a full disk image of my new XPS 15, using Acronis True Image, and it's only about 21 GB so no big deal to store.

 

And it seems the Windows 7 "System Image" tool just images the entire physical disk (all partitions) and has to write to some other drive (or share).

To me it would be more useful if it could image/restore a single partition so I could store that image on the Recovery partition.

 

Acronis True Image allows you to image or restore just a single partition, if that's what you want.

 

Thank you PDSway, I was going mad! looking for this solution. I've a Toshiba Sat A665 and the recovery process to re-link the hidden Pc-Recovery drive (in Toshiba "HDD RECOVERY") is very similar to this.

Sorry for my english.