Recovery CD

Question

I didn't know where else to post this but I just bought a Dimenstion E310 and it didn't come with a recovery CD (OS and drivers). I checked the parts list and it actually doesn't mention anything about those CDs (only the monitor drivers, WordPerfect, and Netzero trial). If this is the norm, and my PC crashes and burns how am I supposed to recover?

rickmktg · Answer

@wanker256 wrote:
I didn't know where else to post this but I just bought a Dimenstion E310 and it didn't come with a recovery CD (OS and drivers). I checked the parts list and it actually doesn't mention anything about those CDs (only the monitor drivers, WordPerfect, and Netzero trial). If this is the norm, and my PC crashes and burns how am I supposed to recover?

In the future, by using the Advanced Forum Search on the bottom of this page, you can quite easily find the answer to this often asked question.

Systems shipped after July 15, 2004 came with Symantec PC Restore. This utility restores the computer to an "as-shipped" condition. If you haven't reformatted, repartitioned, or otherwise modified the master boot record, it should work. Click here for instructions about Symantec PC Restore.

If the Symantec PC Restore utility won't work, but still resides on your computer, a Dell customer has figured out some ways to get it to work again. Note - If you removed this partition, it is not recoverable, cannot be downloaded from the internet, and cannot be shipped from Dell. Click here for ways to fix Symantec PC Restore. Users have also reported that the partition can be restored with Ghost 2003, and Ghost 9 using the '03 capabilities of it. If you boot to the Ghost 9 CD, select Advanced Recovery Taks, select Utilities, then Restore Legacy Image it should work - but you want to verify the image before attempting the restore. It's in a folder called IMG.

Systems that shipped beginning in early 2005 ship without Windows XP. You can contact Dell and request a CD and wait for it to ship, see Contact Us at the bottom of the page.

europa303 · Answer

There was an option to buy the XP disk for $10 when you placed your online order.  If you bought it over the phone the salesperson is supposed to offer that as an option. This is a very common complaint.

zohair · Answer

Hi,      I know this is shocking for most of the customers who buy dell but why do u want to spend on a cd from dell when u can dowload all the drivers and write them on a cd and make your own copy.   steps.. 1) log onto support.dell.com 2) see the right side put your service tag and below that under select a tool select drivers and downloads 3) click on go below that 4) select OS type and click on find downloads 5) From the device lisiting check the components and download all the drivers burn them to a cd and your resource cd is done u can also download the diagnostics also from this site 6) hv questions call dell and ask for assistance to burn drivers they did not charge me the assistance was for free.

europa303 · Answer

Zohair is correct about drivers, but without the XP cd a user cannot reinstall XP itself, so having the XP cd is indeed very important. Doing what Robin A. suggests, particularly onto an external hard drive, is a good backup plan.

Robin A. · Answer

Besides keeping System Restore active, a good way to recover the system is to periodically create images of the C: partition of the hard disk. Use a software like Ghost, True Image or DriveImage XML, which is freeware.

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Recovery CD

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