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SupportAssist OS recovery failed
Dell Inspiron 14 5410 2-in-1 purchased at Best Buy December 2021 with Windows 11 installed. OS won't boot. Computer freezes at Dell screen. BIOS-run hardware tests pass. Tried all solutions listed below*, now up to point of factory restore from within BIOS or downloading Dell recovery image to usb. HOWEVER, factory image info shows Windows 10 Core and Dell's website when I put in the service tag shows Windows 10. What gives? The laptop came out of the box with Windows 11, not Windows 10.
*Solutions tried: Safe mode (won't boot), System Restore (had 3 restore points all failed, now none left), sfc scannnow, chkdsk, dism from Windows PE Recovery command prompt (all failed to properly run, not surprised, but tried anyway), SupportAssist OS reset from within BIOS (failed with "We are missing some of your system details needed to finish the restore. We are aware and working to fix the issue. You can try again later or please go to for immediate support").
ALSO, seen a LOT in Dell forums about issues/fails with SupportAssist and absolutely nothing about these issues being fixed by Dell.
What is best, most successful way to get Windows 11 reinstalled?
NJDave
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November 18th, 2022 10:00
The local recovery option of SupportAssist OS Recovery will restore Windows plus the Dell drivers etc. from the Dell recovery partition on the boot drive... provided that partition is intact. Since your system shipped with Windows 11, I *think* the recovery partition contains Windows 11 as well. If NOT, or if the partition is corrupt or missing, you can always (with access to another Windows system) download Windows 11 from Microsoft to a USB drive or DVD.
Installing from this media is very fast and easy and will get you 90% of the way there. (You can select "I don't have a product key" since your key is stored in the system BIOS. For the most reliable installation, select "Install Windows only", delete all partitions on the boot drive and install in the unallocated space.) Once you go through the typical Windows setup, running Windows Update will get you the latest updates plus most of your remaining drivers. For any stragglers you can download and run the SupportAssist utility. Alternatively you can download drivers manually from Drivers & Downloads but that's rather more difficult. This method doesn't create a Dell-specific recovery partition but arguably you don't need it (this method certainly didn't use it).
jremmc
5 Posts
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November 26th, 2022 08:00
NJDave, thank you. I will check again local recovery option; pretty sure it said Windows 10 Core. If so, I will go the Microsoft route with clean install.
jremmc
5 Posts
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November 26th, 2022 16:00
Update: Got Windows 11 successfully installed but had to use Microsoft method, as the local factory restore option was grayed out in SupportAssist; only the Internet option was available.
The download/create Windows 11 installation media on usb using media creation tool went very smoothly. (I used my Windows 10 PC) The Windows 11 install on the Inspiron had a few hiccups. Here is rundown in case others experience same issues: First, booting to usb on the Inspiron required using F12, and I had to try F12 a few times to get the one-time boot menu with the usb listed, then I had to change boot menu order so that usb was listed first, and apply changes. Second, the Windows 11 install process could not see a hard drive, but luckily I had researched/perused forums before posting and was aware of the issue (needed the Intel RST VMD driver) and solution (see: https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Dell-SupportAssist-OS-Recovery-quot-We-are-missing-some-of-your/td-p/8131976). I followed solution's instructions, with this trick (worked for me): I was able to pull usb from Inspiron without cancelling out of the install, copy the extracted RST folder to it, then plug back into Inspiron and install the drivers following rest of solution's instructions (click Load driver, etc.). After that, install went smoothly. (I did delete all existing partitions, btw.)