The restore completely wipes out the existing Windows install.

Did yout program require an email address or an unlock code to work? If it did and you re-used either, the program probably hailed back to a server at the company and issued the warning.

It's also possible any unlock code is good only for a set period of time.

That is incorrect. Restoring the Symantec partition DOES completely wipe the system - including the registry hives - and resets it back to the way Dell shipped it.

There is no way the Symantec restore could work wihtout wiping the registry out.

Hi Rick, You are right... I do not want you to violate the terms of service of this forum. I think I am at this point saying that the Dell PC Restore by Symantec does not do a true restore back to the way I purchased the computer. Also at this point, I am saying to anyone out there including myself.. that there are certain files and what nots that get in our registry and don't want them there. I am not a hacker but there could be certain things maybe a hacker put there to collect certain private data and such. Again, I do not want these things on my computer so I am looking for a way to really put the computer back like it was when I bought it. I think this is something good to do from time to time. Anyway, thank you for the comments and that all comments are welcome. :)

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@J_Appleseed wrote:
First, I would like to say thanks to everyone making comments and opinions on this matter. :) Ok, back to business at hand. I will add a little more to the story and see if anyone can figure this debate out. I have tried several experiments on this matter of restoring. I will put my foot in my mouth and say I down loaded the trial version software several months ago and burned it to a CD before unzipping or installing anything about it in hopes to use it again. I have installed it several times on other machines so there is not a one time limit of installation ruling that one out. Next, I did a restore not connected to the internet and loaded the trail version again and launched it and the same message comes up again... ruling out that it is not going back to any site getting any information. I am almost convinced at this stage that the software is still seeing something on my computer either in the registry or in a partition some where to let the trial software I keep installing over and over that it has expired. I do not see how the computer is really going back to the way it was before I purchased it with it doing all this. The only other test that I know is to truely wipe out everything and set up partitions again and reinstalling system software and drivers and applications etc... but I was hoping I would do all this in another way because I am afraid I will mess things up doing it the manual way. I did however place the windows xp software disk in and attempted to go through the manual steps until I got to the partition part. I noticed Dell had set up 3 different partitions and I was not sure what to do .... either to delete the c:\ partition and recreate one or do I delete them all and maybe just have one.... seeing how the restore is not really going back like it was anyway.... so why have it. Does anyone have any more ideas before I wipe it all out and get in a mess not knowing what I am doing? lol

 

The trial software has a license agreement that turns it off after X period of time.  You're trying to get around that, in other words violate the license agreement.  Giving you advice in this matter therefore would violate the Terms of Service of this forum.

First, I would like to say thanks to everyone making comments and opinions on this matter. :) Ok, back to business at hand. I will add a little more to the story and see if anyone can figure this debate out. I have tried several experiments on this matter of restoring. I will put my foot in my mouth and say I down loaded the trial version software several months ago and burned it to a CD before unzipping or installing anything about it in hopes to use it again. I have installed it several times on other machines so there is not a one time limit of installation ruling that one out. Next, I did a restore not connected to the internet and loaded the trail version again and launched it and the same message comes up again... ruling out that it is not going back to any site getting any information. I am almost convinced at this stage that the software is still seeing something on my computer either in the registry or in a partition some where to let the trial software I keep installing over and over that it has expired. I do not see how the computer is really going back to the way it was before I purchased it with it doing all this. The only other test that I know is to truely wipe out everything and set up partitions again and reinstalling system software and drivers and applications etc... but I was hoping I would do all this in another way because I am afraid I will mess things up doing it the manual way. I did however place the windows xp software disk in and attempted to go through the manual steps until I got to the partition part. I noticed Dell had set up 3 different partitions and I was not sure what to do .... either to delete the c:\ partition and recreate one or do I delete them all and maybe just have one.... seeing how the restore is not really going back like it was anyway.... so why have it. Does anyone have any more ideas before I wipe it all out and get in a mess not knowing what I am doing? lol

Denny,

Thanks for the info but still a little confused of what I am seeing on my machine. Here is what I see:

-: Partition 1 FAT    47 MB (39 MB Free)

C: Partition 2 NTFS    34507 MB (28376 MB Free)

F: Partition 3 FAT32    3585 MB (1264 MB Free)

Unpartition Space    8 MB

J_Appleseed,

You will want to install XP on the existing C:\ (NTFS) partition. If you don't plan to use PC Restore in the future you could also delete F: and combine C: and F: into the new C:\ (or more). Manual reinstallation is covered here.

J_Appleseed,

The ~34MB partition on the hard disk is Dell diagnostics. The ~3-5GB partition is the PC Restore image of the hard disk as shipped.

ejn63,

You not only may be right at some point, you are right at every point. If the registry were not restored, any software that had been uninstalled since receiving the system would be inoperative after PC Restore completed.

n/m

Message Edited by obey_gravity on 08-21-2005 04:00 AM

Denny,

I set the boot sequence to boot from cd and then put the windows xp setup disk in and restarted the computer. I got as far as trying to delete the c:\ partition and it would not let me do it. The message said: "Setup is unable to perform the requested operation on selected partition. This partition contains tempory setup files that are required to complete the installation." Any suggestions?? I would like to delete this partition and format it and install windows xp on it. Do you know a way around the error message so I can delete the partition? Thanks!

J_Appleseed,

That message indicates that the system did not boot from the XP CD and XP is trying to install from within Windows. This can happen if you have more than one optical drive (CD, DVD) and the Windows XP CD was placed in the wrong one at startup OR that when the "Press any key to boot from CD" message appears a key was not pressed in time to prevent Windows from booting normally.

It's unbelievable the lengths that some people will go to to avoid paying for a program.  Maybe he ought to throw the computer away and buy a new one.  That way he will be able to use the trial software for another free period.  

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@J_Appleseed wrote:
Hi Rick, You are right... I do not want you to violate the terms of service of this forum. I think I am at this point saying that the Dell PC Restore by Symantec does not do a true restore back to the way I purchased the computer. Also at this point, I am saying to anyone out there including myself.. that there are certain files and what nots that get in our registry and don't want them there. I am not a hacker but there could be certain things maybe a hacker put there to collect certain private data and such. Again, I do not want these things on my computer so I am looking for a way to really put the computer back like it was when I bought it. I think this is something good to do from time to time. Anyway, thank you for the comments and that all comments are welcome. :)

 

Dell PC Restore DOES do a true restore.