Factory Restore Inspiron 531s

Question

Hi, Greetings all. For the past few days I have been trying to do a factory restore. System has Vista home basic and crashed. Just would not boot to Vista. Tried system repair - not able to do this. Tried restoring to a previous time - unable to do that too.  PC restore also failed.  Keeping F8 depressed to get the Advance Boot Options - no go. I have tested the memory and did a system test and all passed. So I decided to restore to factory status. When trying PC restore I am told there is no image to be found. I even tried installing Vista  got an error 0X8004240f which is inaccessible disk. I used command prompt and saw Drive C: is called recovery and Drive D: called Vista Home. There are files in both partitions- folders like dell, tools, and so on.Ran Ranish partition Manager and  found:           #         Type              Row                            File System Type                       Size           0         MBR                                              Master Boot Record                         0           1       Primary                                                   Unused                                      31K           2       Primary              1                            Unknown                      0 X DE       56MB            3        Primary                                            Unused                                            92KB    *     4       Primary              2                             Win     NT                 NTFS              10GB    *     5       Primary              3                            Win      NT                 NTFS              146GB           6      Primary                                             Unused                                              1MB           7                                                                 Unused   Note   * Problem - partition overlaps another. How can I get this baby back to work properly. No problem to lose everything. Thanks in advance Beema6

cheesiest · Answer

I just ran a full restore on a similar machine.

Drove me crazy. But got lucky with a few alternative setups.

Try running it from SAFE Mode.

Or restart ,F8 and click on REPAIR THIS COMPUTER.

That took me into the PC RESTORE OPTION.

That one worked for me.

You will loose everything on the drive except what came with it new.

Good Luck

beema6 · Answer

Cheesiest., thanks for the quick response. I tried to, but was not able to boot to safe mode. Tried Last known configuration too and - nothing. Also F8 gives only advance boot menu that has no factory restore option..

Thanks all the same.

cheesiest · Answer

From  F8 The option to choose is 'FIX THIS COMPUTER'. From that choice. You can do the factory restore. Try again. And good luck.

beema6 · Answer

Thanks Cheesiest. Will Try this and report on the result later. Beema

beema6 · Answer

I disabled the automatic restart and on the next restart I was greted with a BSOD listing stop error 0X000000A5 about the ACPI and the need to upgrade BIOS.Suddenly? The system was working well before.

beema6 · Answer

Cheesiest,

When I get into the Boot options menu, there is no options called " Fix" or "Repair" your computer. When I press "Ctrl"+"F11" together, I get nothing. Using the Dell OS Cd I was able to get to a screen with options to repair my computer or Install Vista. Choosing Repair my computer sends me to options like Start up Repair. System Restore, Commant Prompt and PC restore.

Using startup repair tells me "Partition table does not have a valid system partition". Partition Table repair.

When I restart same problem - no boot. I have tried this a bout 30-40 times and there still is no boot to vista.Tried restore -was informed there was no image found so unable to restore.

Windows General

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