[Tripredacus]

jaclaz, on May 18 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

trinitegq, on May 18 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

Does anyone know how the f12 key on a dell pc w/vista works. It doesn't seem to be dependant on MBR or for that matter anything on the drive. I changed the OEM drive and I still can bring that function up. It doesn' work thought, but the menu is there. I wonder how to modify it.

It's in BIOS, nothing much you can do about it, unless you want to start fiddling with BIOS, NOT, and I mean NOT recommended, you could end up with an unbootable system and need even a replacement BIOS !

jaclaz

No this information is stored in the Master Boot Record, not the BIOS. I am in process of duplicating this issue as well, but I can't really tell you much about it because of IP reasons. However volume imaging solutions (such as Ghost and Acronis) save the MBR in the image, but Imagex being file based does not. Anyways, this is also part of the reason why the OPK documentation (as well as WAIK) say that "recovery" aka EFI partitions must be the first partition on the drive. Dell, however, doesn't use WinRE for it's recovery partition, which is why it isn't Part 1 on the drive...

[trinitegq]

Tripredacus, on May 21 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

jaclaz, on May 18 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

trinitegq, on May 18 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

Does anyone know how the f12 key on a dell pc w/vista works. It doesn't seem to be dependant on MBR or for that matter anything on the drive. I changed the OEM drive and I still can bring that function up. It doesn' work thought, but the menu is there. I wonder how to modify it.

It's in BIOS, nothing much you can do about it, unless you want to start fiddling with BIOS, NOT, and I mean NOT recommended, you could end up with an unbootable system and need even a replacement BIOS !

jaclaz

No this information is stored in the Master Boot Record, not the BIOS. I am in process of duplicating this issue as well, but I can't really tell you much about it because of IP reasons. However volume imaging solutions (such as Ghost and Acronis) save the MBR in the image, but Imagex being file based does not. Anyways, this is also part of the reason why the OPK documentation (as well as WAIK) say that "recovery" aka EFI partitions must be the first partition on the drive. Dell, however, doesn't use WinRE for it's recovery partition, which is why it isn't Part 1 on the drive...

Dell doesn't use winRE?! what is it then? winPE? It must be winRE as when the recovery option from F8 is called in the winRE environment boots and you have the option to restore the factory image. Also all the files installed in the REcovery partition (d:\) has pretty much the same files, as far as I've seen as the winRE base wim image.
Take a look at this site (though you probably already did). I think Dell set up winRE according to what this guy is saying. (testing mode). I have to say that I am however struggling trying to install it in my D:\ drive.
I know you're working on it and I'm looking forward to your findings!
One thing though. on my Dell dimension 9200c pc I've changed the OEM hard drive and the F12 options are still there. Unless that option is build when the windows installation is done, these options must be in a special dell bios code. Note that there's a difference between the F12 menu and the F8 menu. What you think?

[robbo101]

This is a copy of the file that I use as my recovery.
if you use this and the WINREConfig.xml file this will add the bottom option to the recovery screen.
My recovery exe. doesn't actually do anything all it does is call a batch file called recovery.bat so you can from that launch anything you want but it made it easier for me to change what I had done at any time as I cannot write executables. I did use autoit though and launched a conferm yes/no box and then called imagex to software the drive.

Hope this is of some help to someone.

Robbo

Attached File(s)

•  recovery.zip (115.34K)
  Number of downloads: 286

[trinitegq]

robbo101, on May 22 2008, 06:12 AM, said:

This is a copy of the file that I use as my recovery.
if you use this and the WINREConfig.xml file this will add the bottom option to the recovery screen.
My recovery exe. doesn't actually do anything all it does is call a batch file called recovery.bat so you can from that launch anything you want but it made it easier for me to change what I had done at any time as I cannot write executables. I did use autoit though and launched a conferm yes/no box and then called imagex to software the drive.

Hope this is of some help to someone.

Robbo

thanks robo101. I think this is of great help. How did you go about creating a winRE partition.

I've followd the instruction here and here and I can't figure out why it doesn't seem to work.
At the ms site they talk about building up a whole system which not what I want to do. At the msdn blog they talk about the option to install the winre to a any partition (for testing) but since I don't want to have my recovery partition hidden. I want it as my D: drive I'm sticking with having winre.wim and boot.sdi at D: root and running the "SetAutoFailover.cmd /target D: /wim /nohide" script. (only my drive is not the first one, it's the third one and it's e:. So I changed D: wiht E: in the script).

What happens then is that I do have the option to run the "repair your computer" form the F8 menu. WinRE seems to boot but then that's it. It takes me to the normal windows login screen.

Any ideas? Thanks.

BTW. do you know what the difference is between an extended winRE installation vs a wim installation?

[Tripredacus]

trinitegq, on May 21 2008, 10:15 PM, said:

Tripredacus, on May 21 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

jaclaz, on May 18 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

trinitegq, on May 18 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

Does anyone know how the f12 key on a dell pc w/vista works. It doesn't seem to be dependant on MBR or for that matter anything on the drive. I changed the OEM drive and I still can bring that function up. It doesn' work thought, but the menu is there. I wonder how to modify it.

It's in BIOS, nothing much you can do about it, unless you want to start fiddling with BIOS, NOT, and I mean NOT recommended, you could end up with an unbootable system and need even a replacement BIOS !

jaclaz

No this information is stored in the Master Boot Record, not the BIOS. I am in process of duplicating this issue as well, but I can't really tell you much about it because of IP reasons. However volume imaging solutions (such as Ghost and Acronis) save the MBR in the image, but Imagex being file based does not. Anyways, this is also part of the reason why the OPK documentation (as well as WAIK) say that "recovery" aka EFI partitions must be the first partition on the drive. Dell, however, doesn't use WinRE for it's recovery partition, which is why it isn't Part 1 on the drive...

Dell doesn't use winRE?! what is it then? winPE?

Dell uses another company's product to create their recovery partition. This company creates custom recovery options to make it look natural to the OEM that sells/distributes the computer. Because my company and the recovery provider are clients, I cannot divulge additional information, sorry.

Quote

BTW. do you know what the difference is between an extended winRE installation vs a wim installation?

A WIM installation, at its simplest, is a partition you can boot to that may have a simple interface, that basically applies the WIM to your C drive. Which is basically what the Dell Recovery partition does but it asks you stuff to make sure you want to do it, etc.

This post has been edited by Tripredacus: 27 May 2008 - 07:54 PM

[trinitegq]

Tripredacus, on May 27 2008, 09:51 PM, said:

trinitegq, on May 21 2008, 10:15 PM, said:

Tripredacus, on May 21 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

jaclaz, on May 18 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

trinitegq, on May 18 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

Does anyone know how the f12 key on a dell pc w/vista works. It doesn't seem to be dependant on MBR or for that matter anything on the drive. I changed the OEM drive and I still can bring that function up. It doesn' work thought, but the menu is there. I wonder how to modify it.

It's in BIOS, nothing much you can do about it, unless you want to start fiddling with BIOS, NOT, and I mean NOT recommended, you could end up with an unbootable system and need even a replacement BIOS !

jaclaz

No this information is stored in the Master Boot Record, not the BIOS. I am in process of duplicating this issue as well, but I can't really tell you much about it because of IP reasons. However volume imaging solutions (such as Ghost and Acronis) save the MBR in the image, but Imagex being file based does not. Anyways, this is also part of the reason why the OPK documentation (as well as WAIK) say that "recovery" aka EFI partitions must be the first partition on the drive. Dell, however, doesn't use WinRE for it's recovery partition, which is why it isn't Part 1 on the drive...

Dell doesn't use winRE?! what is it then? winPE?

Dell uses another company's product to create their recovery partition. This company creates custom recovery options to make it look natural to the OEM that sells/distributes the computer. Because my company and the recovery provider are clients, I cannot divulge additional information, sorry.

Quote

BTW. do you know what the difference is between an extended winRE installation vs a wim installation?

A WIM installation, at its simplest, is a partition you can boot to that may have a simple interface, that basically applies the WIM to your C drive. Which is basically what the Dell Recovery partition does but it asks you stuff to make sure you want to do it, etc.

cool. thanks for the info!

[jaclaz]

For the record, it seems like the MBR Utility (Freeware from Terabyte):
http://www.terabyteu...ee-software.htm
http://www.terabyteu...wnloads/mbr.zip

Has, between others, an option to install a MBR using F12 (or other Fn key) to access a recovery partition and one to install a MBR using Fn key to access a recovery partition and change it's type:

Quote

....

/INSTALL Install MBR code using the follow addtional parameters:

[STD] [SEL to fkey "msg"] [SELM to fkey "msg" fsid fsidhid]

STD Install standard MBR code.
SEL Install MBR code that will display 'msg' and boot a hidden
FAT/FAT32 partition if 'fkey' is pressed within 'to' seconds.
The ondisk MBR is not modified.
SELM Install MBR code that will display 'msg' and boot a partition
with a file system id of 'fsidhid' if 'fkey' is pressed within
'to' seconds. The MBR is modifed so that the partition is marked
active and the file system is changed to 'fsid'. To reset the
MBR back to the prior settings, use the /RESET switch before
modifying the MBR again.
....

mbr 0 /install std

MBR.EXE will install a standard MBR to hard drive 0.

mbr 0 /install sel 5 12 "Press F12 to boot the recovery partition"

MBR.EXE will install a MBR to hard drive 0. The MBR will display the
message "Press F12 to boot the recovery partition" for 5 seconds, and
the F12 key will cause a hidden FAT/FAT32 to be selected for booting.

mbr 0 /install selm 10 9 "Press F9 for recovery" 0xC 0xDB

MBR.EXE will install a MBR to hard drive 0. The MBR will display the
message "Press F9 to boot the recovery partition" for 10 seconds.

If the F9 key is pressed within 10 seconds, it will cause a partition
with the file system ID 0xDB to be booted from. The MBR will then be
modified to mark the new boot partition active, and the file system ID
of it will be changed to 0xC.

Once booted in the partition whose file system ID was originally 0xDB,
the command line "mbr 0 /reset" should be run, in order to set the MBR
back to the state it was in before the file system ID and active
partition values were changed.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 02 June 2008 - 07:53 AM

[trinitegq]

jaclaz, on Jun 2 2008, 09:51 AM, said:

For the record, it seems like the MBR Utility (Freeware from Terabyte):
http://www.terabyteu...ee-software.htm
http://www.terabyteu...wnloads/mbr.zip

Has, between others, an option to install a MBR using F12 (or other Fn key) to access a recovery partition and one to install a MBR using Fn key to access a recovery partition and change it's type:

Quote

....

/INSTALL Install MBR code using the follow addtional parameters:


...
Once booted in the partition whose file system ID was originally 0xDB,
the command line "mbr 0 /reset" should be run, in order to set the MBR
back to the state it was in before the file system ID and active
partition values were changed.

jaclaz

jaclaz, this is excellent news. Thanks for the info I'm sure it will come handy to many people. I know I will definitely need it!
Great catch!

[Tripredacus]

This program did indeed give the ability to get a keystroke from the user while displaying information on the screen. However it would not boot the recovery partition I use. It is a hidden, no drive letter 0x12 partition that IS bootable. Except when I press F10 (instead of F12) it tried to boot off the network. I disabled network boot in the BIOS and it will then say "No Bootable Device"...

So it seems that the MBR.EXE is looking for a different type of hidden partition than the one I am using.

[jaclaz]

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

How is it really formatted?

You might want to try the "selm" parameter.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

jaclaz, on Jun 2 2008, 03:31 PM, said:

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

How is it really formatted?

You might want to try the "selm" parameter.

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.

[trinitegq]

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!

[pretender69]

trinitegq, on Jun 6 2008, 10:52 PM, said:

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.

[trinitegq]

pretender69, on Jun 8 2008, 10:46 PM, said:

trinitegq, on Jun 6 2008, 10:52 PM, said:

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?

[trinitegq]

oops

This post has been edited by trinitegq: 09 June 2008 - 02:35 PM

[deploymentgeek]

Hi Guys

I know this is a old thread, would you like you to know that we have developed a complete, pre-installation and recovery system, including backup etc.

If you would like to know more, please let me know

Best Regards

Rico Raja

[jaclaz]

deploymentgeek

You may want to read Rules, expecially #4:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Forum-Rules-Upda...ead-t18408.html

And you might want, anyway, to check the spelling on your site, I would never buy anything from people that write "Avaible" instead of "Available".

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 03 July 2008 - 09:49 AM

[andrewwan1980]

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.

[dexter.inside]

You are forgetting that most users don't even grasp the notion of 'recovery' for their OS

[Corn~Julio]

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