![]() In this way it's relatively quick and easy to recover from a failed hard disk or corrupt OS. One hint I could offer in this regard is to retain old hard disks when upgrading disk or replacing a pc and buy a cheap disk enclosure (aka disk caddy) to mount the old hdd as a USB drive, great for storing backups and should be detached from computer after backup has run (and preferably stored in another room, ideally in another building). Far better, imo, to run regular partition backups to an external drive and restore from them. ![]() In effect it's performing a 'factory reset' on the computer thus anyone using this recovery option months or years 'down the line' will then have to spend many hours re-installing customized software, downloading patches and recovering any data files held on the OS partition. The whole process using Bcdboot and Disk Management only took around 5 minutes.Īs a general comment I feel that the Dell Recovery Partition is only really useful during the first few months of using a new computer as its use is very destructive of data and user modifications, at least for those who have not created an additional partition to separate data files from the operating system. The unwanted recovery partition can then be removed. Disk management can be invoked in Win7 via Control Panel - System and Security - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management or (shorter) by using the start button and typing DISKMGMT.MSC in the search line.Īfter changing the active partition check that the computer will boot successfully with the Dell Recovery Partition inactive. Next step is to use the Disk Management Utility to mark the Operating System partition (factory set to C: on my new Dell) to 'Active' which will also have the effect of marking the Dell Recovery Partition as 'Inactive'. Help on syntax is available by typing: Bcdboot /? In above example, assuming the operating system partition is drive c: and the boot routines are located in the default location (C:\Windows) it's assumed user requires the c: drive to become bootable hance the 'c:' following the '/s'. Btw I'm using Windows 7 64 bit edition but I understand process for 32 bit ver of Win 7 and Win Vista is very similar:įrom the start button type 'Command' in the search screen and click on the command prompt option to display a DOS type screen.įrom the resulting command prompt type: Bcdboot c:\windows /s c: ![]() The way I did it was simple and did not require any downloads, burning a BING cd or use of Regedit. I still needed to get rid of the Recovery Partition, not because of space concerns but due to the partition limit of 4 described above. ![]() It may sound a bit messy but I was on a 'learning curve' and the whole process of restoring a working boot partition took less than 30 minutes. I then booted from the Paragon recovery CD and restored the Recovery Partition from backup on external USB drive. Undeleting the Recovery Partition via Paragon did not fix the problem, I suspect because I did not perform the extra step of marking the undeleted partition 'Active'. Having first checked that the Dell Recovery Partition was backed up externally and in duplicate I then deleted the partion via Paragon but quickly found computer would not boot. Unfortunately the Dell pre-loaded Utility and Recovery Partitions count toward the limit of 4 partitons per disk hence I only had 2 partions available were I to retain both Dell partitions. As the new hard drive was large I wanted to make 3 separate partitions - 1 for the OS and program files and the other 2 for data files. Firstly I backed up everything to an external USB drive using Paragon & Recovery Suite 10 and restored the complete disk / partition images to the new hard drive. I've a new Dell XPS which shipped with a small hard drive (did not specify larger disk as they are much cheaper purchased online independently). Firstly I'll explain why I wanted to get rid of the Recovery Partiion. There's a much easier method of transferring the boot routines from the Dell Recovery Patition to the Operating System Partition.
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