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Create My Own Recovery Partition?


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A non-hidden 12 partition becomes a visible 02 one.

How is it really formatted?

You might want to try the "selm" parameter. :unsure:

jaclaz

It is formatted FAT32, and appears as a EISA partition in Disk Administrator, without a drive letter.

I also tried the other application on that site, MBRWORK, which appeared (at first) to be a hopeful fix. My test computer (where I am doing the MBR work) is a clone of computers that we currently image daily. So I have ready access to production units. I captured the MBR off one of the working production units, and then applied it to my test computer. It went through without error, and displays the appropriate information on the screen during boot-up. However, it did not respond to the "R" key and the "F10" key did not seem to work any better than before.

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Success! (well, half)

I was finally able to install winRE and have it bootable from the F8 menu. ("Recover your computer")

The problem seems to have been the "hidden" Dell partition (type DE) which is the Dell Uitlity that I wanted to have also on my drive. It seems that SetAutoFailOver.cmd doesn't recogonize it and thus when running the script I was indicating that winRE is installed on the 2nd partition. The script always ran successfully, however it never worked when booting from the F8 menu.

So when I decided to run winRE (wim install) from "C:" drive and simply run the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target c: /wim /nohide <enter> it worked.

The winre.wim is sort of unpacked in memory. Also it's not a good idea to have the recovery option running on the same drive (partition) you're planning to repair.

I tried installing winre via imagex on E: and run the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target e: /nohide <enter> - it worked!

The problem. Since I wanted to have four partition:

Dell Utility (DE) - 50MB - Hidden

RECOVERY (07h) - 10GB

OS_Install (07h) - 50GB

Data (07h) - 690GB

I always ran the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target e: /partition 2 /nohide <enter>

It never worked as it wouldn't see the DE partition and thus it wouldn't count it. So it was trying to boot from the OS partition. Of course it wouldn't work.

This is for the benefit of anyone looking to do this, the only thing to keep in mind is to have the RECOVERY partiton (winRE) installed before the OS partition and keep in mind that any hidden partitions before the RECOVERY partition are apparently ignored.

For full instructions go:

= Windows recovery environment --> HERE (Recommended)

- Windows RE notes blog --> HERE

- Windows PE Walkthroughs --> HERE

- Inside the Dell Utility Partition --> HERE

My problem now is that I do have the Dell recovery files* (thanks redjoy!), however while PCrestore.exe shows up on the WinRE recovery menu (as Dell factory image install) when chosen nothings happens. Even if I run it via the DOS command, it won't run. I does run from windows however. If anyone has any idea as to why this could be please let me know. I think that the PCrestore.exe program has some sort of signature to the hard drive or the PC that it was initially installed in and if it doesn't match it won't do anything when ran. For now I'm happy!

*Files where compared and found to be correct and the exact same size as well as the supporting files from another source. The files are located in the "tools" folder of a Dell machine with Vista installed in the Recovery partition. Also, the winreconfig.xml found in the "sources/recovery/tools" folder was exactly the same.

Thanks redjoy for all your help!

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Success! (well, half)

I was finally able to install winRE and have it bootable from the F8 menu. ("Recover your computer")

The problem seems to have been the "hidden" Dell partition (type DE) which is the Dell Uitlity that I wanted to have also on my drive. It seems that SetAutoFailOver.cmd doesn't recogonize it and thus when running the script I was indicating that winRE is installed on the 2nd partition. The script always ran successfully, however it never worked when booting from the F8 menu.

So when I decided to run winRE (wim install) from "C:" drive and simply run the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target c: /wim /nohide <enter> it worked.

The winre.wim is sort of unpacked in memory. Also it's not a good idea to have the recovery option running on the same drive (partition) you're planning to repair.

I tried installing winre via imagex on E: and run the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target e: /nohide <enter> - it worked!

The problem. Since I wanted to have four partition:

Dell Utility (DE) - 50MB - Hidden

RECOVERY (07h) - 10GB

OS_Install (07h) - 50GB

Data (07h) - 690GB

I always ran the script as:

setautofailover.cmd /target e: /partition 2 /nohide <enter>

It never worked as it wouldn't see the DE partition and thus it wouldn't count it. So it was trying to boot from the OS partition. Of course it wouldn't work.

This is for the benefit of anyone looking to do this, the only thing to keep in mind is to have the RECOVERY partiton (winRE) installed before the OS partition and keep in mind that any hidden partitions before the RECOVERY partition are apparently ignored.

For full instructions go:

= Windows recovery environment --> HERE (Recommended)

- Windows RE notes blog --> HERE

- Windows PE Walkthroughs --> HERE

- Inside the Dell Utility Partition --> HERE

My problem now is that I do have the Dell recovery files* (thanks redjoy!), however while PCrestore.exe shows up on the WinRE recovery menu (as Dell factory image install) when chosen nothings happens. Even if I run it via the DOS command, it won't run. I does run from windows however. If anyone has any idea as to why this could be please let me know. I think that the PCrestore.exe program has some sort of signature to the hard drive or the PC that it was initially installed in and if it doesn't match it won't do anything when ran. For now I'm happy!

*Files where compared and found to be correct and the exact same size as well as the supporting files from another source. The files are located in the "tools" folder of a Dell machine with Vista installed in the Recovery partition. Also, the winreconfig.xml found in the "sources/recovery/tools" folder was exactly the same.

Thanks redjoy for all your help!

Only thing i've noticed that the PCRestore.exe file looks for is a Factory.wim located in the \dell\image dir.

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Success! (well, half)

I was finally able to install winRE and have it bootable from the F8 menu. ("Recover your computer")...

My problem now is that I do have the Dell recovery files* (thanks redjoy!), however while PCrestore.exe shows up on the WinRE recovery menu (as Dell factory image install) when chosen nothings happens. Even if I run it via the DOS command, it won't run. I does run from windows however. If anyone has any idea as to why this could be please let me know. I think that the PCrestore.exe program has some sort of signature to the hard drive or the PC that it was initially installed in and if it doesn't match it won't do anything when ran.

...

Only thing i've noticed that the PCRestore.exe file looks for is a Factory.wim located in the \dell\image dir.

yeah, I noticed that when I ran PCrestore.exe (from windows) and it said that factory.wim was missing. I put it then on the dell/image dir and ran it again. This time it ran properly and went ahead and asked me if I wanted to install it and it'd reformat c:, bla bla.... I didn't do it of course.

However, when run from the winre environment, clicking on the menu for the Dell option or running PCrestore.exe from command doesn't do anything at all.

Any other ideas guys?

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is a good project. The factory partition setup from most vendors (Dell, HP) have 1 recovery partition and 1 large main os partition. It's not good enough if the recovery will wipe the main os partition. It would be good to follow good ol' UNIX methodology and have a seperate partition for user data. Dell/HP doesn't make repartitioning any easier... with the consequences of losing the Dell Utility, Dell MediaDirect partitions and Dell's special MBR F8 code.

If Dell has taken steps of giving us recovery CDs, then they should also give us recovery MBR, recovery partition tables... added bonus of letting us configure our partitions in the first place.

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I dont know if this will work with Vista but i do intend to find out as i just got it, but it does work with XP and have been doing something similar w/variations since 311

I have 3 drives C,D,E. C is Obvious, D is personal storage i.e. games music porn (lol) and E is for recovery,since dos isn't an option i have installed XP on E to initiate a gui unattended to C using winnt32.exe, I use bat's w/alcls, del & deltree (yes it works) to delete all but the ntldr, ntdetect and the boot.ini, not exactly formatting the drive but I've had no trouble

I have chosen leave many files on the E for my unattended and use cmdlines.txt to point there as to reduce the amount of files to be copied and increase the installation speed, this also serves well when tweaking the UA as you save on CD\DVD

Its not as flashy as Dell or others, its not VMware, its unconventional, but it is simple, and it is essentially the same concept, I know its not the answer to your question, but it might be an alterntive

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Has anyone got further in this "Create Your Own Dell Recovery Partition" project?

For anyone wishing to retrieve Dell's F8 Repair Computer option, then follow the instructions using setautofailover.cmd (WAIK tool) from http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/winvistare.htm - If you messed up your MBR then you can use Vista's CD Repair feature and use bootrec fixmbr & fixboot (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392). Dell uses everything Microsoft to create their Vista Recovery route (previously used Ghost, etc).

setautofailover /target d: /partition 2

usually works for me. Don't use /wim since Dell's RECOVERY partition has a non-WIM Recovery Environment... but their factory restore image is WIM. Their non-WIM RE will automatically run to restore factory.wim into the last visible partition. So if your last visible partition is DATA.. and not OS... then it's going to get overriden. To avoid this, you'll need to use ptedit.exe and hide your DATA partition... so that your OS partition is the last visible partition.

Currently am building up my own factory.wim and going to replace Dell's factory.wim file. Lucky I made a backup image of the RECOVERY partition so I can play about with it on the laptop.

Other ideas is to use BartPE... and Drive Image XML. BartPE can be installed in the RECOVERY partition clean... and Drive Image XML of the OS partition (or use your favourate hard drive image program).

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i have currently created something very similear, but it's linux based and use partimage for imaging.. currently stuck on modifying grub a little to display a message like: "press esc for recovery" or something...

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Hi

i use acronis trueimage with a recovery partition on my c drive on boot up if i want to relaod windows i press f11 which then starts acronis recovery system

hope this helps

smartie91

smartie91, can you tell me more about Acronis TrueImage Recovery System? I know about Acronis TrueImage from a NORMAL windows application that you install and use within Windows XP (last time I used). I remember about Acronis bootable CD... but never could get working. You say you have a Acronis Recovery System in a recovery partition similar to Dell's? How did you set this up? I guess one could copy the bootable CD to that recovery partition yeah.

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Hi

i use acronis trueimage with a recovery partition on my c drive on boot up if i want to relaod windows i press f11 which then starts acronis recovery system

hope this helps

smartie91

Yes, Acronis does have a backup/recovery system using a hidden partition. Instead of making a .tib file, it saves the contents of a partition as raw data on that hidden acronis partition. No big deal, and is quite useful for laptops.

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