Dell 1545 recovery issues after failed hard drive

Solution to this problem: The user created recovery discs would not boot so I installed from a Windows 7 disc, which I burned from a digital download from here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/. Also, the download stopped at random times, and I had to use the resume download trick in Firefox: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=6333845 (steps are in the 9th post). The Windows COA number was under the battery, needed at the end of the Windows install, and no activation was necessary.

Using the service tag number on the bottom of the 1545, I downloaded the drivers from Dell. It wasn't obvious whether this computer was running 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7, and the service tag didn't help in identifying this. Going on the available drivers from Dell's site, it turned out that there were no 64 bit drivers available, and I went with 32 bit.

Also, Dell offers one-time recovery discs at no fee from their site: https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form Just fill out the form. I didn't want to wait, and a clean install from a Windows disc is a better option any way, so I went with that. There is no need to install any of the Dell software, other than the drivers.

Maybe this solution will be helpful to others.

Tl;dr version of problem: Dell 1545 will not boot from recovery discs after replacing a failed hard drive.

Long version of problem: A friend of the family called saying that her Dell 1545 is giving her an error message about a failed hard drive. She's a very giving person to everyone around her, so I told her to bring it by and I would see what I can do. She had created a set of recovery discs (3 of them) when she bought the computer, and I have those discs, along with the computer. I pulled the drive and tested it via a usb adapter and the Seagate test utility, and it failed. Since I had an old drive that isn't being used, I decided to give it a try. Before testing it, I inserted it in the 1545 to see if it would be recognized, and it was. It made it to the Windows boot screen before spitting out an error message (it's from an HP laptop). I tested the drive using the Fujitsu test utility, and it passed, so I formatted it, installed it, and set the Bios to boot from cd. It won't boot to the recovery discs. I checked the recovery discs in my computer, and they seem fine. Each disc shows up in explorer, I'm able to browse the files, and there aren't any scratches or any other physical damage to the discs. The only options at the Dell logo are F2 (setup) and F12 (boot options). When I go to boot options, I get a message that no bootable media is found, and I have the options F1 (retry) or F5 (restart). I read that some Dells can be recovered by Ctrl + F11, but I get no response to that key combo.

I'm wondering if these recovery discs aren't meant for recovery after a failed hard drive. Maybe they work in conjunction with some software on the original hard drive? If so, that is a terrible way to recover. I'm a bit baffled over this one, as recovery discs usually boot up and recover the machine to it's factory configuration. Any ideas out there?

 

Can you boot the recovery disks in your own computer? That would tell you if they are good or not.

 

Going on my hunch about the recovery discs and factory hard drive, I reinstalled the old drive, and the 1545 will boot from the recovery discs via F12 with that drive installed, but the system goes to a startup repair dialogue screen. A bad hard drive is reported, and it tells me that startup repair cannot fix the problem automatically. Really? Clicking finish, I'm presented with recovery options. Brilliant, Dell. I can only use recovery discs with the factory hard drive. What was the plan for a failed hard drive?

As I see my options now, maybe I can use a Windows startup disc to get things rolling, maybe not. If that doesn't work, I can install a fresh copy of Windows 7 (Microsoft provides legitimate downloads these days), and reinstall the drivers.

Any words of wisdom before I go about, what will likely be a few hours of, working on this?

Another thought. Maybe I connect the replacement drive via the usb adapter and recover to that drive. We shall see.

 

The recovery discs work, but only with the factory hard drive. Not much of a recovery plan that Dell set up here, is it?

Ok, so no option for recovering to another hard drive was available. Bummer. Next stop, a Windows startup disc.

The Windows system repair disc wasn't of any use here. I'm going with the last option of installing Windows from an iso download.

 

Dell recovery media needs to be installed on the same sized original hard drive or larger.

The control + F11 is only for older XP dells. Vista and higher will utilize Dell's newer recovery partition software, which is accessed through F8.

If your machine came with Vista or 7, you can just grab a corresponding Dell disc and reimage it with them, it will automatically activate Windows.

 

Thanks for that info. I hadn't considered the hard drive size, as it seems like it would be arbitrary.

 

I didn't either, til I tried to use my Alienware's Respawn discs on a smaller sized SSD and I get an error that it was a smaller sized drive than what it shipped with (250 GB 7200 rpm drive from the factory, at the time I had a 120 GB Intel SSD as the boot drive). You can always go larger, but smaller is a no-no.

 

I had her pick up a new drive of the same size, and it's still no go. The recovery disc isn't booting, although it appears to be fine. I guess that I'll test the discs and go from there.

 

For whatever reason, the recovery discs did not work, but I suspect that this was down to when the discs were created. Who knows went wrong there.

I ended up reinstalling Windows using a Windows 7 disc (coa was under the battery), and I manually installed the drivers. At least the computer won't be full of crapware.

 

I just replaced my hard drive, and didn't dare to run the CD that came with the computer. I put Office on there and downloaded anything else I needed (all were free) online.