Re restoring OS to factory from recovery partition

Hi i have a dell xps l502x......i want to restore it to factory condition. I tried F8 but there is no option to restore from the recovery partition or do a factory restore.....i tried using the OS install disk (windows 7 ) i managed to install ok , but then when installing the drivers i got stuck on the nvidia driver, it said i had to install an intel driver first ......did this several times and is driving me mad...there is no option to format, so there are several copies of windows ( old 1,2 etc) i deleted these but the drivers remain.

i found that i could install from the recovery partition using the hiren boot cd and imagex......but i got the message imagex not found....more hair pulling....i have now formatted c drive and have downloaded the drivers from dells site and will try and install these...

i think it would be better to install from the recovery partition and then restore hopefully the f8 option for the future.....

dont know why dell seems to make this so difficult.......

Any help would really be appreciated

thanks

Responses(4)

ieee488

4 Operator

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11.1K Posts

0

October 28th, 2013 15:00

http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/04/KCS/KcsArticles/ArticleView?docid=DSN_347576

theflash1932

7 Technologist

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16.3K Posts

0

October 28th, 2013 16:00

The factory restore is fairly fragile. Dual boot, run WinRE bootrec commands, or reinstall, and you have damaged your ability to use it even though it is still there. I have heard people say they were able to use the image to restore from (much like the imagex method), but you'd have to google that on your own. I also heard that current images do not work this way. Best thing to do is just install from DVD/USB, delete the recovery partition, and download/install drives from support.dell.com.

Reddwarf4ever

7 Posts

0

October 28th, 2013 16:00

Hi

while i appreciate the post, it didnt really answer my question.

i want to install using the recovery partition. Its still there and intact, but there is mo option in F8 that i can see to do a factory restore from it.

i did the restore from the windows disk, manual install, but had all sorts of grief with drivers. I downloaded all that was available from the dell website, but it did not have the intel graphic card driver.......took me ages to discover what i needed, as nvidia refused to install, saying it needed an intel driver first....then there was one other device sm something !!! Plus an unknown device, none of these drivers were on the dell web site.....it took me a whole day to finally track them all down and get the OS installed correctly with all drivers.

i think if i restore from the recovery partition, then the option to irecover from this via the F8 menu will also be restored....

thanks

Reddwarf4ever

7 Posts

0

October 28th, 2013 17:00

Hi

there is meant to be an easy way of doing it using the hiren boot cd.....couldnt seem to getbthe command line right.....using imagex....meant to be very successful ......

Windows General

Re restoring OS to factory from recovery partition