Windows 7 has the tools to make a system repair boot disk on a cd. Open Backup & Restore to make it. You can access the diagnostic partition on the hard drive. You can use Backup & restore to make backups and system images to save on an external hard drive.

The Windows 7 backup and restore utility only shows the operating system partition and the recovery partition but not the diagnostic partition. My old Dell computer came with a bootable diagnostic cd but my new computer didn't. I did see that there are diagnostic utility iso files on the Dell website but could not find one for my system.

The diagnostic partition does not show up in Backup & Restore. It is hidden and cannot be accessed directly.  You have to follow the instructions for accessing the partition on your model--usually either F8 or F12 as soon as you reboot.

You can see a visual of the small diagnostic partition in computer management, disk management.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?&docid=DSN_155502&isLegacy=true

Anybody here able to answer my question? I don't want to lose the diagnostic utilities should I ever need to have my drive replaced.

Hi 99RBGB,

This should work. It's not an ISO but the executable will create a bootable CD or flash drive containing the diagnostics. I keep a bootable flash drive with the diagnostics at the ready in order to help friends who own Dell systems.

In addition, your Dell drivers and utilities disc is bootable and can be used to run the diagnostics.

If you buy a good quality 16 gig or larger USB 2.0 flash drive you can use the Dell Datasafe utility basic mode and it

will make a bootable windows 7 restore media that will create the factory recovery as well as the diag and windows partition.

You do this instead of making multiple dvds of the same thing.   The only catch is that the usb drive will ONLY RESTORE to a drive that is

AT LEAST as large or Larger than the original drive.   So if you have a 1 TB drive you cannot restore to a 500gig drive  but you can up to  2TB. 

 5/2/2006  6:54 PM      5605376 cdd_1264.ISO
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 11/7/2006 10:08 AM      5605376 cdd_1277.iso
 9/15/2006  1:17 PM      5605376 cdd_1280.iso
  9/5/2006  1:41 PM      5605376 cdd_1281.iso
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12/12/2006  9:03 AM      5605376 cdd_1284.iso
12/12/2006  9:20 AM      5605376 cdd_1288.iso
  4/1/2008  8:55 AM      5605376 cdd_1291.iso
 6/12/2007  1:49 PM      5605376 cdd_1295.iso
  4/1/2008  1:47 PM      5605376 cdd_1298.iso
 7/10/2007 11:58 PM      5605376 cdd_1299.iso
 6/25/2007  1:11 PM      5605376 cdd_1300.iso
 7/12/2007  9:52 PM      5605376 cdd_1301.iso
  4/1/2008  9:14 AM      5605376 cdd_1303.iso
 8/24/2007  1:48 AM      5605376 cdd_1306.iso

Hello Osprey,

I downloaded the executable and burnt a bootable CD, which was really easy to do but the CD doesn't work! I don't think is compatible with my system.

I tried booting the drivers and utilities disc but I got a message stating that there is no boot image on the disc, or something like that.

Are you using the F12 menu to boot to the CD drive? How about your Windows disc? Does that work?

Yes, obviously, your system needs to be able to boot to the CD drive in order to use one of these diagnostics discs.

Yes, I hit F12 and then select my DVD drive. The windows disc boots fine and so does a linux disc that I burnt. The drivers and utilities disc does not boot.

I'm stumped. Seems like a picky drive.