return to factory settings after upgrading to windows 7?

Question

Hello,

I have a laptop XPS 1530 (dutch) with originally Vista on it. I upgraded to windows 7 ultimate. I experienced some difficulties with files and hardware, such a connecting a camcorder. I tried to set up the default factory settings bij startup and press F8. Then I couldn't choose the menu item "Dell Factory Image Restore". It wasn't there anymore, maybe because of upgrading to windows 7?

Anyway, I have a D-partition called "recovery". It has several directories. Is there a way other then using startup and F8 to reach the program that installs the Dell factory settings? Can anyone tell me the steps I have to take?

Thanks for helping, greetz, Hans

DELL-Jesse L · Answer

vhg900,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

If you upgraded from Vista to Win 7 the restore partition will become corrupt. Do you have the 32 or 64 bit version of Win 7? There have been users who have had some success in restoring back with the 32 bit version by following the information below.

As a workaround we could try the following steps:

For 32-bit installs:

1. Hit F8 on startup, select 'Repair'

2. Start a command prompt.

3. Change to the D: drive.

4. Set the path to 'Path=d:\windows\system32

5. Go to the d:\tools directory

6. Run PCRestore

7. Follow the prompts to restore the image.

Same steps could be performed by WinRE by booting to OS media. If booting to the OS media doesn’t fix this issue, in addition to above commands you could also try ‘bootrec /RebuildBCD’ command.

vhg900 · Answer

Thanks Jesse for your quick reply!!

I have the 32-bit version. My dos-skills are a bit rusty :emotion-5: . How can I start a command prompt within the stepts? and the command for changing a directory is cd followed by D: ?

What is WinRE? Is that some kind of program? I didn't quite understand your last sentence.

Thanks again, greetz, Hans

RobinBredin · Answer

Hi vhg900, Click on Start, Click Accessories, scroll down to Command Prompt. Change Directories C to D, where D is your D Recovery Partition. Is C:\>D: {ENTER], that will change your C drive to your D drive. As for WinRE, found this HERE for you. I don't know if you have tried to do an factory install using your F8 at bootup, there might be an slim chance, being an upgrade, rather than an clean install, your D Recovery partition might be ok.

Windows General

return to factory settings after upgrading to windows 7?

Was this post helpful?