dell factory image restore ahhh!!!

I am trying to restore my laptop (studio xps 16) to factory settings using the recovery image. If I look in my computer, i can see C and D drives. D is my recovery partition with 7gb full out of 10gb. This is good and dandy except when i open the D drive, there is one folder that says RECOVERY that is empty. Why is it empty when there are 7gb's of files in there? I already have hidden files shown. I don't know how else to restore my laptop. Any ideas?

 

g'day fuzzypumpkins

my research shows that with this particular del laptop you can enter the recovery partition via the F8 menu just restart the computer and at the flash screen at the beginning tap the F8 key until the menu comes up then select the recovery form the menu as shown here " http://www.twistedethics.com/2008/06/30/dell-xps-laptop-how-to-boot-the-recovery-partition/ "
hope this helps good luck.

 

http://support.dell.com/support/top...pe=&os=&component=&lang=&doclang=&toggle=&dl=

 

thanks for helping. I have used the f8 menu many times but it does not help. The thing I am looking for is called dell factory image restore. It should be in the menu that pops up after going to "repair your computer". It is not in that list. There are manual ways to do it as seen here...

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19254952.aspx

...except, the files I need, factory.wim for example, are not "visible" in the folder under my recovery partition. It says empty. The program i downloaded called 'partition wizard home edition' will let me see them, but as far as i know, the program wont let me do anything else with them. I know the files are there, but I cant get to them to finish the manual factory image restore. Wow, after reading that back, that is ridiculous haha. So much work to do a simple restore. Hopefully I explained a little better. Thanks.

 

in the menu that pops after the repair your computer screen is the an option for dell factory tools if so click on that and then the del factory image restore.

 

Your restore partition may be corrupted. Request backup discs here: http://support.dell.com/support/top...ackupcd_form?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&redirect=1

 

the repair your computer option isnt there.

thanks, this is probably my best option now.

 

I used another Dell OEM disk to install and then changed the product key when the partition for image restore wasn't accessible.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328874
There is also a program called KeyUpdateTool_enu.exe, which is what I've used:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1334

 

nevermind, through some tricky workarounds using live cd's, third party programs, and dos commands, I finally restored the factory image...

these guides really helped out for anyone else that has this problem in the future....

http://smsoftdev-solutions.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-restore-dell-factory-image-when.html

http://www.notebookforums.com/post3049150.html

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t106779.html


thanks guys, marked as solved