Help with replacing OS, etc

[angelleigh]

Hi.. I'm having trouble with this, if anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

at the beginning I got the security check virus... thought I'd gotten rid of it, but my comp continually froze up or lagged badly and the virus was constantly redirecting the browser. so after getting tired of this I attempted a factory restore (not system). well I wasnt able to access the factory restore and so I started looking online for an answer to how to fix this. Other forums I've been to tell me to go to dell for support. there IS no support from dell.. pfft.. please help if you can.

>>>>>>I STARTED WITH THIS:

Download Hiren's BootCD from http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
Burn Hiren's BootCD to a CD
Put the Hiren's BootCD into CD Drive and Reboot computer
Select "Mini XP" from the menu
Double click on "My Computer"
Identify the partition that you use for your operating system
Right click on that partition and select "Format" to ensure a clean install

>>>>> ALL THIS WORKED FINE!

Identify the recovery partition and go to the "Imaging" folder
Right click on the "Imaging" folder and select "Command Prompt Here"
At the command prompt type (substituting c for your particular recovery partition and e for the partition that you use for your operating system)

imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 e:\

>>>>AT THIS STEP IS WHERE I RAN INTO TROUBLE AND GOT THIS ERROR: imagex is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

I'm not sure what to do now, because there IS a factory.wim file at this location. Please, any help would be appreciated, thank you!

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Thread moved to Computer Help forum, per suggestion by oynaz.

Harvey
Senior AnandTech Moderator/Administrator

 

[oynaz]

This belongs in the Computer Help forum, btw. You will get more help there.

The error message tells you that it cannot find imagex. If you are sure you are on the right drive, type

cd\
dir /s imagex.*

This will search for the imagex file. When it is found, go to the right path, and type your command again.

 

[Bubbaleone]

.....Identify the recovery partition and go to the "Imaging" folder
Right click on the "Imaging" folder and select "Command Prompt Here"
At the command prompt type (substituting c for your particular recovery partition and e for the partition that you use for your operating system)

imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 e:\

>>>>AT THIS STEP IS WHERE I RAN INTO TROUBLE AND GOT THIS ERROR: imagex is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

oynaz is absolutely correct. I believe you misunderstood the part about "(substituting c...)":

"At the command prompt type (substituting c for your particular recovery partition and e for the partition that you use for your operating system)"

imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 e:\


This imagex command, as typed, is merely a suggestion. Unless your .wim file is actually located inside a folder named "image", located inside a folder named "dell", and "dell" is located at the root of the C:\ drive itself; the command will fail.

Go back to the MiniXP Explorer view of your computer's file structure, expand the "dell" folder and click on the "image" folder. Now look at it's file path in the Explorer Address bar. That is the path you use in the imagex command. Do the same for the drive you ran the "format" command on.

Here's an example: Let's say "F:\dell\image\factory.wim" is the .wim file location and the drive you formatted is D:\. Then your imagex command would look like this:

imagex /apply F:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 D:\ /verify

Note that I added the /verify switch at the end of the command. It enables file resource verification by checking for errors and file duplication.

Also be aware that the drive letter assignments in MiniXP Explorer view will not necessarily correspond to the drive letters you see when booted into Windows, so don't let that concern you.

For an in-depth look at using imagex see the ImageX Command-Line Options

 

[angelleigh]

I tried Oynaz's suggestion about finding it and it says that imagex is under C:\tools, but the .wim file is under c:\dell\image\factory.wim. Now not really having a clue what either of these things does, other than restore my computer.. help.. please? lol I've tried changing the drive letters to different things, but according to the info above, I believe I did it correctly. thanks so much for assisting me folks. this is much more hair raising than I thought it would be!

btw.. thanks Oynaz and Bubbaleone

 

[Bubbaleone]

I tried Oynaz's suggestion about finding it and it says that imagex is under C:\tools, but the .wim file is under C:\dell\image\factory.wim. Now not really having a clue what either of these things does, other than restore my computer.. help.. please? lol I've tried changing the drive letters to different things, but according to the info above, I believe I did it correctly. thanks so much for assisting me folks. this is much more hair raising than I thought it would be!

btw.. thanks Oynaz and Bubbaleone

Well you're almost there! Looks like you just need a little practice navigating in a command prompt, is all. So get back into MiniXP and open a command prompt.

Since imagex is located in C:\Tools, that's where you have to first navigate to. Once you're in C:\Tools, then you run the imagex command from there. Let's navigate to C:\Tools.

Type one [italicized black] line at a time then press "enter" before typing the next line:

cd /d C:\Tools

The blinking cursor should now show you at this position: C:\Tools>_
(Since you already have a C:\ partition why don't you just install there?)

imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 C:\ /verify

 

[angelleigh]

Well you're almost there! Looks like you just need a little practice navigating in a command prompt, is all. So get back into MiniXP and open a command prompt.

Since imagex is located in C:\Tools, that's where you have to first navigate to. Once you're in C:\Tools, then you run the imagex command from there. Let's navigate to C:\Tools.

Type one [italicized black] line at a time then press "enter" before typing the next line:

cd /d C:\Tools

The blinking cursor should now show you at this position: C:\Tools>_
(Since you already have a C:\ partition why don't you just install there?)

imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 C:\ /verify

thank you again.
Idk how to get rid of these damned smilies.. lol so I did what you said and got this pop up error: C:\Tools\imagex.exe is not a valid win32 application...
arghhh.. lol

 

[angelleigh]

now if I could just figure out my comp...