Dell :: Factory Restore After Overwrite Of MBR / Bootloader
Nov 15, 2012
I have a new XPS L521X that came with Windows 8. I hate Windows 8 so I decided to install a generic copy of Windows 7 the other day. I'm now having issues with Windows 7 and would like to factory restore the system, but since windows 7 overwrote the MBR, I am not able to access the Dell recovery. The hard drive still has the PBR Image partition, I just don't know how to boot from it. How I can boot into the Dell recovery and restore back to Windows 8? Is there some sort of UEFI boot option I can just add in the BIOS?
I am thinking of installing a new hard drive to my Dell XPS 8500 (replacing the one that came with my system).
I have made DVD's that will install the factory image using Dell backup. If I install a new hard drive can I use these DVD's to install Windows 8 (the factory image) to my new hard drive?
My Dell inspiron 17 SE on Win 8.1 has crashed when I was trying to initiate a factory restore. I did the free upgrade from 8 – 8.1 and since installing I have had nothing but problems.I was in the process of formatting the HD to return this junk heap to the store where I purchased it, when I had a message of “some files are missing, please insert media”.I pressed cancel, restarted the computer - which then into a loop, and that’s all it does now.The sequence is:Start up - Automatic repair (your pc did not start correctly) - Preparing automatic repair - Diagnosing your computer - Your PC ran in to a problem and needs to restart - repeat.I then ran trouble shooting and F12 diagnostics which told me nothing was wrong and then proceeded back into the same loop on exit.
I had a problem with my laptop, which its model is dell inspiron 5537 15r 1tera 6GB ram ,windows 8 original .
I have gave it to a technician who told me that the hard needed to be changed from gpt to rbn or something like that am not sure because of this process hard have been formatted.
how could i restore my lap top to factory status ?
or getting my original product key for my original windows 8 that was installed on my laptop .
I have a XPS 8500 with preinstalled windows 8. I tried to install Ubuntu 12.10 on it. When I partitioned the disk, I accidentally format the whole disk. Then I could not restart to Windows 8. I didn't make any backup or recovery media. How to restore factory image?
I have a Dell XPS 8500 win 8.1. I recently installed Linux Mint 17 on an external HD which booted from GRUB. I now removed Mint 17 ok but I'm left with a reference to 'UBUNTU' in my bootloader. I'm unable to remove this reference. this reference to UBUNTU prevents me from booting from a LINUX USB. I think I need to repair the bootloader but can't and I have tried all sorts of.....FIXBOOT, FIXMBR. etc.
I purchased an ACER ASPIRE V5-571P and have had nothing but issues with windows 8. I have restored the computer once using acer recovery media but there are still partitions from previous install and i have no access to the original factory recovery partition either. Id like to know how to fully reformat the entire disk and restore the recovery media back to 8.0 with the correct manufacturer drivers and then reinstall my purchased 8.0 pro upgrade without losing my drivers from acer... lastly then continue to and upgrade to the 8.1 Pro finally. As of now when i upgraded to 8.0 pro it deleted all my OEM ACER drivers and factory programs and now windows has replaced with best effort drivers and i dont know what drives should be there and what are incorrect at this point.
I have a Asus K55a. I am getting ready to sell it and am looking to erase everything but obviously the windows 8. I tried f9 and it eventually stopped and said it's missing the correct partition, and I don't believe it came with discs.
I would like a FREE way of either putting a clean install of win8 back on or just removing all the info. Of course there are no backups on here either.
My computer has been running fairly slow lately, and I want to do a full system restore. I've done this on my old Windows 7 computer with no problems, but I can't seem to do it with Windows 8.1.
My laptop didn't come with an installation disk, Windows 8 was already installed when I got it. And I can't seem to make a recover partition drive.
I did a factory reset on my pc, after backing up all of my files to an external hdd... how do I restore those files to the fresh factory reset? Do I put them in a .zip and move them onto the onboard hdd?
So my laptop has been getting multiple BSOD errors during or shortly after startup. I let my roommate download and play WoW and Ventrillo. And the issues started shortly after, first with the game simply crashing and escalating into the computer itself not working correctly. I figured the best place to start since it didn't have much stuff on it was to just put my stuff I needed on a USB and do a factory reset. Which seemed to make no change. I have run memtest once for four passes and it found no errors.
I can remember a few of the errors I have been getting. Bad Pool Header Memory Management IRQL not less or equal Kernal Security Check Error/Failure There was also one or two other memory related ones that I cant remember the exact wording of.
My son decided to reset his windows 8 laptop to original factory settings, during the reset process his mom decided it was taking to long and turned off the laptop.
Now when its turned on it shows the message "restoring your computer", this message will then change to "diagnosing your computer", the screen will then go blank and it start all over again.
I can boot it from a USB drive, but when I click on "repair" i get an error message that it cant repair the computer. When i try to run restore from the USB I get a similar message.
is there anyway to run the system restore from the DOS prompt?
Yesterday we received one XPS ONE (<Admin Note:service tag removed per privacy policy~RK>) similar, but not identical, to some others we already bought in the past. Apparently, the main differences are more memory (6G instead of 4), auxiliary SSD and the touch screen.
The unit was performing very well and we could install all what we needed (only Adobe Premiere). It was then automatically proposed a Dell (not Windows) update. We agreeded and the process was completed successfully. We switched the computer off regulary.
At the next power on.... the boot failed. It seemed that the boot sector was damaged or something else. The Dell service tried a lot to cooperate with no results. It was impossible even to reinstall Windows from scratch.
This morning, Dell service is proposing to configure differently the unit respect to factory set up, saying that they are not completely aware of factory set up (and letting understand that it was not so good anyway....)
We do not agree: we do not want to have a unit different from standard. We want to reset the PC EXACTLY to factory setting, unless we have some official notice saying that original setup was not good.
What we need is BIOS and RAID controller set up (expecially for SSD).
We are a software house and have a lot of internal skills, but we need the essential information to be able to do the work.
I want to know that what OS is included in factory image that made after upgrading from windows 8 to 8.1 (Factory image can be made using "My dell backup and recovery" application )
So i have a 12 duo, and it has been acting slow lately and i figured it is time to bring it back to its younger days. I tried doing the reset within windows 8, but it asked for installation/recovery media, which i don't have. And i know what you're thinking, just use the recovery partition. No can do... it is gone. I do not remember getting rid of it but anyways, its not an option. I tried creating a recovery usb via this link but my key did not work for retail versions. What can I do?
I have Latitude 10 tablet that now has Enterprise edition of Windows 8 installed and this has removed the Dell Picks section in the Microsoft app store. Is there any way to get this back? I have an app installed on another device that is Dell exclusive and I cannot find any way to get it installed on the Latitude 10 even though it is a Dell device.
I want to automate one process that I do from time to time. I have many folders, sometimes like 90 folders and I want to move them all into a single folder, the filenames are the same so they overwrite. I can overwrite them, in fact, I should, I just want to move all files from many folders into one folder, not doing it manually. Is there a command in CMD that can do that? E.g I have FolderSubfolder 1... Subfolder 90 so in 1 folder I have the subfolders then I have RootFolder where I want all to be and overwritten, MOVED not copied
trying to reset to factory settings my Dell Inspiron 660s that uses Windows 8. Some how my ex had downloaded a interface to make Windows 8 look like windows 7. It has virus on it that I just want to reset it. I have tried to reset thru going thru change pc settings-to general-to recovery. It gives me an error code of 800....???. So I restart it, hit F12 brings up a boot window where my options are Boot Manger (clicking on this takes me back to my desktop) Boot Setup is the 2nd options, then Diagnostics (which I have run and says nothing is wrong then takes me to my desktop) then I forget what the last option is.
I have a Dell Inspiron 660s desktop running Win 8. How large of a USB Flash Drive do I need to create a copy of the factory image? How large of a USB Flash Drive do I need to create a copy of the pre-installed applications, drivers and utilities? The only apps I have are the standard ones that come with the 660s running Win 8. Using Dell Backup & Recovery (Pro or Premium), I created a system backup on an external hard drive. This resulted in my external hard drive being partitioned into DBR_Master (F), which used 31.5 GB of the 1TB hard drive; and, DBR_Boot (G), using 23.6 MB. What is DBR_Master (F) all about? What is DBR_Boot (G) all about? In the event of an OS crash, will I be able to re-boot from the external hard drive? How often is it recommended to do a full system backup?
Since a system backup does not backup applications like MS-Office, is the purpose of periodic backups to capture future fixes & revisions to the OS? Since there is still a lot of unused space on the external hard drive, is it ok to save my daily data backups to the external hard drive? I tried to save data backups using File History to the DBR_Master (F) drive but it would not let me. I created a new folder in DBR_Master (F) but that didn't work. I receive a message that the destination was not connected. Where should I save daily data backups? Last question - does it matter whether I use File History or Dell Backup and Recovery to do daily data backups? Are there any advantages or disadvantages to using one over the other -- they seem to do the same thing?
I am running Windows v 8.1, would like to go back more than one restore point, and cannot do so.
When I click System/System Protection, click the [System Restore] button and choose the "Choose a different restore point" radio button, I am only offered a single restore point. I understand that some users also see a radio box reading "Show more restore points," but I have no such option. Is there a download available or some other way to see more than one restore point? I tried restoring in the hope that I could then see a prior restore point, but not such luck. The reason I need to do so is that I'm getting an annoying malware pop up in my browser and going back a restore point (or two) seems to be the only way I can find to make them stop displaying.
Running Windows 8 on an Inspiron 15 and the hard drive crashed (cannot boot). Of course, I did not make backup Recovery DVDs, and I am beyond the warranty period so cannot get them from Dell. However, I was able to boot the system running Linux, create a RAW image file of the OS partition, and then was able to recover my data files. Which made me wonder--are there files in separate partitions that could be recovered to create a recovery/restore disk? My goal is to replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows 8 on the new drive (assuming that the product key, which I do not have, will reactivate automatically.)
I haven't seen anything in the forums about this approach to generating reinstall disks.
My alternative, since I have been able to recover my user files, is to purchase a new laptop.
I wanted to restore my laptop back to factory settings before passing on to a friend, but when running the DataSafe restore software something went wrong and the laptop will no longer boot...doesn't seem to recognise that the hard disk is there.
BIOS settings recognise the disk and going into Boot Options (F12) I can get to diagnostics which gets as far as the memory tests then the processor overheats and the laptop shuts down (which was why I got a new laptop in the first place!)
Fortunately (I thought) I have the Recovery DVD that I created when first used the laptop, that boots fine and but when try to restore to factory settings it produces the error 0x400110020000100a as soon as the formatting screen comes up.
The laptop is an Inspiron N5010 if that makes any difference.
I recently had to do a system restore through the Dell System Restore programme, however now it appears I cannot activate Windows 8 - I get the "Windows cannot activate right now. Try activating Windows later".
I have tried entering manually through a command prompt but all I get is an error 0x8004F80B. How to resolve this?
Cannot create a Restore Point. I try thru Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> System Protection.
No available drives show under Protection Settings.
When I try to launch thru System Config -> System Restore, a pop-up tells me Starting System restore, but that just hangs there forever. I have to stop it in Task Manager.
I have tried sfc - no reported problems.
Malwarebytes Pro and anti-virus report no problems.
