Re recovery disk and hidden partition on dimension 5150C

Hi Keith ,

Unfortunately, there is no way to create a recovery disk in Windows XP. Also, we have not tested to create the hidden partition with norton ghost.

Please reply for any clarifications.

If not possible, could I be sent a recovery disk from dell......if the hidden partition or HDD fails ....and it eventually will, I will have to re purchase a windows os......I don't think I can use the cd key on the PC case to install a fresh copy of XP, unless you can help me

Thanks

It's possible to clone a hard drive completely, including any Dell partitions. I did it with a Dimension 3000. I'm not sure how to do it with Ghost, but it can be done with other products. Personally, I gave up on Ghost after they abandoned their DOS-bootable diskettes, in favor of Acronis TrueImage.

One possible solution is to clone all partitions to a spare drive, which can then be cloned to a new hard drive if need be. Hard drives and external enclosures are inexpensive.

There's no way 3gb constitutes a "full" backup.

I think you can save the partition backup file to an external device.

If you have the hidden partition you can restore that to a new drive.  It will be a factory restore only and will erase the contents of the drive.  You would need to clone the drive and run dsrfix.  There are 3 partitions.  DIAG of 60 MEGS, OS , and 8 TO 12 gig recovery depending on the original drive size.  The version of norton does not usually handle drives larger than 120 gigs.  

www.goodells.net/.../dsr-dos.shtml

Restoring the Ghost Image (DSR-DOS)

If the hard disk passes DSRcheck's scrutiny, the autoexec.bat file launches the script file c:\bat\recover.bat to automatically run c:\bin\recover.exe and restore the Ghost image file, c:\img\fi.gho, to the disk's second partition.

Dont be fooled by drive letters. The recovery partition is at the end of the drive. The reason that drives larger than 120 gigs are not supported is that the recovery partition is FAT32.  If its NTFS then the recovery uses dsrfix but windows xp and ghost 10.  The diag partition is type DE. 

The recovery partition is type DB  Ptedit and DSRFIX change them back to what they need to be.

Hi yes I realise this BUT you didn't answer my other questions....

if I back up my partition to an external device can I then restore this to a new  hard drive in a newly created partition and will ctrl F11 still use this new hidden partition to,restore the PC.

The other question is in norton ghost it offers to make a FULL computer backup, which is approx 3gb big, does this INCLUDE the operating system and all apps etc.

Thanks

Sounds really complicated, it's a pity dell don't allow you to create a recovery disk.......in the usa a recovery cd can be ordered FREE.....also if I am using a NEW HDD with the hidden partition on how can can c auto exec run as there will be nothing on c drive until a restore is done.......

An update.......there are just 2 hidden partitions.....one called dellrestore and the other called dellutility the first is about 4gb the second is only a few hundred MB...........but I w told there were 3 hidden partitions......

Really am confused now. All I want to do is to back up the restore partitions to allow me to transfer them to another drive if need be.

Why can't dell release the data safe product to allow me to create a recovery disk......so simple.....I actually did BUY the operating system with the PC, so should be allowed to make a backup of it in case of HDD failure......dell not really being very helpful.  I have another PC an ACER. This has a built in facility to make a recovery cd or a recovery disk image, so helpful.......come on dell be more friendly.....

There are 3 partitions The DE(60 megs) the 07 (80 Gigs) and the DB(12GiG).   The DE is the Diag/Utility Partition. Its Fat16 and hidden. The 07 is NTFS the os.  The DB is the recovery partiton.  Each can be cloned and then DSRFIX run to make it work as recovery.  HOWEVER this does not work with drives LARGER than 120 Gigs because the Recovery is WIN9X DOS on a FAT32 Partition.  The \img\fi.gho and fi.GHS files are a Ghost Image.  Recover.exe is a version of DOS GHOST that does not allow new image recovery.

This is all explained on the site where you get DSRFIX.  

Hi

I give up......if dell can't be bothered to make it easy for me to make a recovery disk, or supply me with one, as they do in America......I will just format the whole lot and buy another operating system that I will own the disks for and can do anything I want with them.........best advice I ave got from this DON'T BUY DELL

you can aslways use Clone Disk in Acronis, Acronis has also a few other features as well, or buy a disc off ebay.

Using PTEDIT You can unhide and copy the recovery  and Diags to a usb flash drive.  You would however still need a windows disk to repartition and reformat so that you could run DSRFIX and then do CTRL F11 recovery.

Partition tables are which acts as a pointers to the data stored in the logical drives .When the table is corrupted the OS cannot find the necessary files which results in black screen throwing errors. To restore ntfs partition is not a tough task by using a good partition recovery tool .I tried one and It gave me a good results when i tried with my dell pc .the trial version can recover datas from the hard drive and the full version provide the save option...