The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Please HELP! M1710 can't do a PC Restore

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by superlatives, Aug 21, 2006.

  1. superlatives

    superlatives Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    28
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Folks:

    Just took delivery of a new XPS M1710 this morning.

    To get a "fresh start" to undo some changes I made, I decided to do one of those full PC Restores.

    Restarted the notebook, hit CTRL-F11 at the Dell BIOS screen at start-up. NOTHING happens, just boots to Windows.

    Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated ... THANKS!
     
    superlatives, Aug 21, 2006
    #1
  2. dg1261

    dg1261 Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    95
    Messages:
    88
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Troubleshooting steps:

    (1) Are you sure you have a DSR (PC Restore) partition? When you boot into XP, take a look in Disk Management (Start, Run, "diskmgmt.msc") and look at the schematic "map" in the right pane. Not all Dells ship with a DSR partition, but if you see an "Unknown" partition, about 3-5 GB, at the end of the disk with no drive letter, that suggests you have a DSR partition.

    (2) Do you have a Dell MBR? This is easily overwritten, so even if your system shipped with the Dell MBR, it might not necessarily still have it. The telltale sign of the Dell MBR is a black screen with a single blue line at the top, with "www.dell.com" in white-on-blue letters. This screen should appear for 2 seconds between the POST phase (Power-On Self Test, with the giant blue Dell logo) and the XP splash screen (when XP starts to boot).

    If the answer is yes to both, then make sure you're pressing Ctrl+F11 at the right time. When the POST phase starts, you'll see the blue Dell logo, there will be a brief delay, then the "F2" and "F12" prompts will appear in the corner of the screen. After POST completes, you'll see the 2-second blue-line. You must press Ctrl+F11 after the F2/F12 prompts appear, and before the end of the 2-second blue-line pause. Hold down the Ctrl key, press down the F11 key, then release both keys together.
     
    dg1261, Aug 21, 2006
    #2
  3. superlatives

    superlatives Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    28
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    DG:

    That did it ... thanks! Tech Support said I needed to hit CTRL-F11 immediately when I saw the Dell logo. YOUR advice to do it AFTER the F2/F12 prompt and BEFORE the blue-line disappears is what did it!

    MANY thanks again!
     
    superlatives, Aug 22, 2006
    #3
  4. dg1261

    dg1261 Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    95
    Messages:
    88
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Yeah, even the official Dell document ( Journal: 062340165B) gets it wrong and contains a couple factual errors. It clearly was written by someone who did not understand how a computer boots. You must avoid pressing the keys too early (you have to wait until after the bios completes its keyboard test before it will start accepting keystrokes), and pressing the keys multiple times cannot possibly generate a "keyboard error". That's not the definition of a keyboard error.
     
    dg1261, Aug 22, 2006
    #4
  5. harsan

    harsan Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15

    have you resolved ths problem ?

    how to restore this noebook ?
     
    harsan, Aug 29, 2006
    #5