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nlukianov

1 Message

11422

May 30th, 2007 17:00

how to burn the restore partition on cd?

hi, i got inspiron 6400, and i'm about installing gentoo. i wish to delete the restore partition but still have the option for restoring the computer to the win xp, how can i burn and save the restore partition on cd's or dvd? thanks

ToeBee

58 Posts

May 31st, 2007 05:00

Interesting question. I nuked the restore partition on my old inspiron but wish I would have thought of this. I would imagine you should be able to burn a bootable CD with a copy of the restore partition on it. I'm not as familiar with CD booting but I would imagine you could maybe dd the restore partition into a .iso from a liveCD and then burn that iso as a bootable CD. And really it would probably require a DVD instead of a CD but I digress... Give it a shot and let us know!

bongski55

52 Posts

June 1st, 2007 02:00

the restore partition which contains the factory image file for restoration was designed to work only if the partition is intact. I am just hopeful that you will be successful in your plan to transfer the restore to dvd.

xgreenmanx

3 Posts

June 1st, 2007 17:00

Here is the mauled post for info sake

Before you attempt this be sure to backup your MBR (master boot record).  The Dell PC Restore mechanism relies on the MBR being intact and as it was from the factory to function.  Even if you were to leave the partition itself intact any modifications to the MBR would make the restore partition useless.  Best case scenario would be to leave the partition there and just back up the MBR.  There's tons of info on google but this is how I do it.  The following may vary depending on the type of hard drive in the system or the number of hard drives.  Everything has to be run as root.

Backing Up the Master Boot Record

Boot to a live Linux CD (such as knoppix, Da.mn Small Linux etc.) and switch to a console (Ctrl + F1) and insert a blank floppy disc and then run the following... (color for clarity)

COMMAND CENSORED BY DELL'S STUPID LANGUAGE FILTER

This will make an exact copy of the MBR to the floppy disk.  If later you need to restore the MBR back to the hard drive you simply switch the "if=" and "of=" (input file/output file) commands for example...

COMMAND CENSORED BY DELL'S STUPID LANGUAGE FILTER

Obviously in your case using a floppy is out of the question unless you have an external one so the next best thing is to save it to the hard drive and email it to yourself...

COMMAND CENSORED BY DELL'S STUPID LANGUAGE FILTER

This will save the MBR as a file named backup.mbr.  After that you just open up a web browser and attach it to an email.

And to restore the MBR from a file on the hard drive boot to a live linux CD and switch to a console (Ctrl + F1) and run the following... (again, color for clarity)

COMMAND CENSORED BY DELL'S STUPID LANGUAGE FILTER

BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE TOUCHING THE MBR!!  Changing the MBR can and will prevent you from accessing the data on your hard drive.

 

xgreenmanx

3 Posts

June 1st, 2007 17:00

I put together this elaborate post telling you how to back up your MBR and why you should and different methods but the lanuage filter is so ridiculous that it won't even let me post the commands you need to run because they could be abbreviations for no-no words that might offend someone. 

It's stupid so check your messages.

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