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Factory image for Dell laptop borked...

S

silicon

Senior member
When i cloned my laptop hard drive to a Sandisk SSD i used EZ Gig IV software. It all worked well and the SSD booted without issue. However i decided to test the "Factory Settings Restore Image" by selecting it after pressing F8 it seems not to be working. It gave an error message. OK. I have created the backup media so in the future should a problem arise I can reload from this media.

Would anyone know how to get this factory image to work again?
 
Rather than worrying about the restore image I would just get the windows installation media for your version of windows and use the cd key on your laptop to do a clean install of windows. Log into your dell account and dl all of your software/drivers and burn them onto an optical disk so you will have them in the future. I did this with my alienware when I was running windows 7 home premium and did a clean install on my samsung ssd.

As for getting the factory image to work again, did you by chance change the drive controller mode say from raid to ahci? If you did change it you much return it to the original setting in order to access the restore media image on the hd.
 
Does your SSD have the recovery partition? If it helps, I have done a clone one a Lenovo with Todo Backup and was able to do a factory restore after the fact.
 
ketchup79 said:
Does your SSD have the recovery partition? If it helps, I have done a clone one a Lenovo with Todo Backup and was able to do a factory restore after the fact.
Click to expand...
yes the factory recovery partition is still there but when i tried to use it it gives an error message.
 
Back when I worked on computers more Dells always seemed to be the flakiest ones with the working/not working recovery.

You can order media directly from Dell, try again, or try the method I suggested above. Once the manufacturer's recovery setup has failed, I have not yet found a way to fix it.
 
Puffnstuff said:
Rather than worrying about the restore image I would just get the windows installation media for your version of windows and use the cd key on your laptop to do a clean install of windows. Log into your dell account and dl all of your software/drivers and burn them onto an optical disk so you will have them in the future. I did this with my alienware when I was running windows 7 home premium and did a clean install on my samsung ssd.

As for getting the factory image to work again, did you by chance change the drive controller mode say from raid to ahci? If you did change it you much return it to the original setting in order to access the restore media image on the hd.
Click to expand...
Ok So I am trying to get the proper version of windows 7 from MS and the CD key gives a message to contact MS support rather than allowing a straight download of the iso. Any suggestions?
 
OK, you cloned the factory drive to a SSD. The logical thing to do at that point was to remove the factory HDD and put it away. It was your system backup. Is it still available?
 
silicon said:
Ok So I am trying to get the proper version of windows 7 from MS and the CD key gives a message to contact MS support rather than allowing a straight download of the iso. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

The win7 forum has all installation media available for you to dl. Just google them and you will see the links.
 
Puffnstuff said:
The win7 forum has all installation media available for you to dl. Just google them and you will see the links.
Click to expand...
this does not work...it only links to the MS site requiring a CD key and in my case the cd key brings a prompt to contact MS support.
 
Then your key is invalid if the digitalriver system will not accept it. I used the key on my alienware laptop without incident to reinstall windows 7 home premium x64. What version of win 7 do you have? You can google the media from several sources because down loading the installation disc is not piracy if you already have a valid key.
 
Puffnstuff said:
Then your key is invalid if the digitalriver system will not accept it. I used the key on my alienware laptop without incident to reinstall windows 7 home premium x64. What version of win 7 do you have? You can google the media from several sources because down loading the installation disc is not piracy if you already have a valid key.
Click to expand...

That is the version I have on my laptop....Windows 7 Premium. I used magic jellybean to extract a cd key, tried it and got a message to contact MS support. Underneath the battery the CD key was a different number. Tried that one on the MS site as well without success.

As one poster mentioned I still have the original hard drive with the original recovery partition intact. Somehow in the cloning process to the SSD this recovery partition was rendered inoperable. I just wanted to see the other day if I could still recover if windows 7 if necessary and this is when i discovered the recovery partition on the SSD did not work.

This is my plan...I will restore the original hard drive to the laptop. Image the current windows 7 partition. Run the recovery process and restore the laptop to its "as delivered" software config. I will then back up this as an image also. Remove the hard drive and reinstall the SSD to the laptop. Then I will delete the recovery partition on the SSD and claim this space. The small partition that is left will be deleted also. the laptop likely will no longer boot at this point so will need to run the procedure to rewrite the MBR. It seems complicated but not really or maybe I have overcomplicated it?? 😀😀😀
 
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Make sure your cloneware can be used as a bootable entity. Do not clone from within Windows! That is how you lose the hidden partition.
 
I've found that programs like magic jellybean do not turn up the right key. Use the key on the sticker on the laptop case or inside the battery compartment.
 
OK so last night I decided the recover partition and the small partition(on the SSD) in front of it had to go. I deleted the recovery partition and the small one and, no surprise, the laptop would not boot. So I repaired the windows 7 installation using a disk from my desktop windows 7 installation and it worked. as for the original hard drive, its still intact and should i sell the laptop this will be put back in and the windows 7 installation restored to as delivered from the factory. I do not understand what the small partition is used for in the first place.
 
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bit late but here is some info.

corkyg said:
Make sure your cloneware can be used as a bootable entity. Do not clone from within Windows! That is how you lose the hidden partition.
Click to expand...

actually macrium reflect free will clone factory restore partitions (like dell) fine. just select "image disc" not "image partition" and make sure you image and restore to the original drive.

EDIT: it will do that from running vista and win7 systems.




silicon said:
OK so last night I decided the recover partition and the small partition(on the SSD) in front of it had to go. I deleted the recovery partition and the small one and, no surprise, the laptop would not boot. So I repaired the windows 7 installation using a disk from my desktop windows 7 installation and it worked. as for the original hard drive, its still intact and should i sell the laptop this will be put back in and the windows 7 installation restored to as delivered from the factory. I do not understand what the small partition is used for in the first place.
Click to expand...

macrium reflect will image a running win7 partition to a smaller drive, macrium will resize it for you. Ive transferred running vista and win7 installs to smaller SSDs several times. however its better to image from a bootable CD instead.

make sure you image the whole disc, including the small 200 Meg 1st partition as win7 usually wants that. tell macrium to restore the MRB too.

Ive found that if you image a dell recovery image to different disc it complains and wont restore. it like the original drive for restores from the recovery partition.

image the original drive a couple times to different media for safe keeping. then run restore from the *original* drive, letting it boot from that. then image new fresh win7 install and restore to the SSD, replace the drive, letting macrium resize it, and presto.. the dell will run fine on the new SSD.

I use a USB3 to SATA adapter for this on notebooks.
 
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