Dell M4600 accessing the recovery partition

[Perryg114]

It seems that the recovery partition is not accessible without some software interaction. I upgraded to Win10 and it won't access the partition through the recovery process. It just installs Win 10 over Win 10. I have other means of putting 7 back on it but I though I would play around and see if the recovery partition could actually be used for something other than taking up disk space. The BIOS does not seem to have an option to do this but it should. I mean what is the point if you have to have Win7 working to restore Win 7?

Perry

 

[Dahak]

Well the recovery partitions are there to restore it back to original factory state from when you took it out of the box.

If you dont care or need that partition you can just delete it and merge it with the current os partition

 

[Perryg114]

I actually want to use it. Win 10 does not have chipset drivers for my laptop so I want to go back to 7.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Before I upgraded my alienware laptop I took the dell restore image and copied it over to another drive first before I did anything else. If you can see the partition you can cope it over to an optical disk, insert it and select it from the bios menu when you restore.

The other thing is you can perform a clean install using the 7 key off the sticker which I've also done in the past. Make sure that you have all of the dell drivers and software available which you can get directly from dell's website.

 

[bruceb]

Perry .. Have a look here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/for...restore-function-after-installing-windows-10/ ... particularly post #05 ... You can get the program mentioned in the post from here:

http://gimagex.windows10compatible.com/

I was able to recover my system! I used the Hiren's boot CD and a program called GimageX. I set the source to the Factory.wim image in the recovery partition and the destination to a formatted C DRive. When this completed I rebooted and everything installed a fresh copy of the factory restore that the laptop shipped with. I would like to get the dell data safe program working properly and have the ability to use Ctr F11 again. I now can't see the DEll Back Up and recovery Manager under system recovery options.

 

[Yakk]

Pressing F8 when the Dell logo appears should bring you to the boot menu.

Select "Repair your computer"

After some Admin checks (this is a full workstation, not just a regular laptop) Eventually you'll get the option for "Dell factory image restore". Check reformat and restore to factory condition.

Alternately you can order a restore disk from Dell.

 

[Perryg114]

F8 brings you to the Win 10 menu. You have to have the Win 7 boot loader or some afterware to access the win 7 partion.

Perry