Dell 1545 Will Not Boot Into Recovery Partition

lol, I've misspelled that word (genious instead genius), my english is not that good, sorry. Anyway, I've been working as  a TI professional (not even close to be good as you)  for about 20 years, and I'm used to solve some hard issues. This one was driving me crazy, mostly because the laptop isn't mine but a costumer's.

Your post was the golden mine on my case, so you really deserve a big THANK YOU! Wish you all the best, you are GREAT!

My kindly best regards,

Ulisses - b2b - Brazil, with a costumer who is going to be very happy when she receives her laptop with original factory system working properly.

I am having trouble and could use a bit more guidance. I have downloaded and made the WINPE disc using ImageBurn on an WIn XP machine, when I boot the 1545 (Vista HP and I have no idea if it is 32 or 64bit version)  it loads the Windows files, then takes me to the Boot Manager. File "windows\system32\boot\winload.exe" is missing or corrupt. Status: 0xc0000001. Pressing continue only gets me to the second page of the Boot Manager, Windows Setup [EMS Enabled] or Windows Memory Diagnostics are my only choices. I can get no further. This is a laptop that was given to a friend, because it does not function. Windows will load to the user account login, but the password will not function. You cannot get beyond this. I checked the bios setup and there are no admin or other system passwords present, all are open and unassigned. Ran the diagnostics and all is fine. I cannot boot the machine into anything since it always comes to this login and we cannot get any further. Since I have no restore discs, I was hoping this method would allow me to wipe the system and restore to original setup. I can only assume the original owner picked up some nasty piece of malware that is preventing all my attempts. The only OS discs I have are Win Xp. Have I missed something on the instructions? Your help would be most appreciated.

Congrats to boogiemuster and gibb99 (and others) - excellent info guys!

I was trying to restore a Dell M5040 and the above info got me tantalisingly close to success, but imagex kept giving me an error write after it said 100% Applying Progress.

I discovered that c:\dell\image directory actually contained three image files factory.wim, factory2.wim and factory3.wim. To make it work I needed to modify the IMAGEX command as follows;

imagex /ref c:\dell\image\factory*.wim /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 D:

This forces imagex to recognise that there are three linked files to restore. Instead of 8 mins the first time I did it, this new command took over 19mins to complete with no errors!

(I found this info at hardforum.com/showthread.php )

Hope that helps somebody.

Just to add my experience - and thanks for the help boogiemunster, it was invaluable.

I had the same issues, the recovery process from Dell's datasafe backup utility just would not make the laptop boot from the recovery partition. Even though I could see it in disk admin, and it was "Active" according to that too. Anyway I did as boogiemunster suggested and booted from the WinPE ISO

My partitions were then C: for the recovery, D: for my old D: drive (with just files on it) and E: for my old C drive.

I ran imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 e: and it ran for a little while, complained, then choked over lack of disk space. So I ran diskpart to format the old C drive :-

• diskpart
• select disk 0
• select part 3
• format fs=ntfs quick
• exit

Do you have any x64 versions of this winpe? the dell computer i am attempting to repair has a 64-bit system, not a 32-bit. If so, please post it so that I could use it. Thank you very much for your assistance.

You do not need a x64 bit version of the WINPE.  All you are using that for is to restore the factory image.  If the factory image is x64, then that is what will be installed.  So using what I posted should work with no issues.

greazydeigo,

Sorry for the several month delay, but let me know if you are still working on this and I will look into providing additional information.

Could not boot the recovery disk either.  Upon receipt of the laptop (alienware, dell) I did create the dell Lap Recover USB thumb drive.  So, start recover sequence by plugging in the thumb drive, restarting the laptop, pushing F12 for boot options and booting from USB.   Hopefully,  you did create the recovery DVD or USB media at purchase.

I know I'm a little late to the discussion, but boogiemunster your directions were right on the money (providing the recovery partition is still there.  Worked like a charm for me.

I needed to revert from Windows 10 back to Windows 7 after 5 months of running the "upgrade". Microsoft says you can only revert back if it has been less than 30 days since the upgrade.

After that time has expired, the default recovery options are lost (deleted or modified not sure). Windows 10 would not respond to F8 commands during boot-up or the DELL Ctrl+F11 or Alt+F11 or Alt+F10. However, I could see the RECOVERY partition under disk management, which was marked as ACTIVE.

Very frustrating.

This solution worked perfectly on a clients INSPIRON ONE 2320 to downgrade from Windows 10.

Thanks for your sacrifice of time BOOGIEMUNSTER!

3 years later and we are still rolling!!  I LOVE IT and all my pleasure!

@boogiemunster

You are such a GOLDMINE

I was so frustrated with this issue but finally I found your instruction. Thanks so much man. You are a great resource for this tech community.