Accessing Dell Utility/Recovery Partition

Question

I'm having trouble accessing the Dell Utility/Recovery Partition.

I've seen all kinds of articles online that tell me to press some magic key combo when I see the Dell splash screen, but I never see the Dell splash screen. Just the initial boot screen and then straight to the Windows XP screen.

I know the Dell partition is there because I saw it when I attempted to reinstall windows.

What is the easiest way for me to boot from the Dell Partition so I can re-image the machine back to factory defaults?

Solution 1

I did some digging and found the answer to my question here:

http://tp0x45.blogspot.com/2008/04/solved-system-restore-dsr-fix-dell.html

Solution 2

The splash screen is the Dell logo with a loading bar. If it's been disabled, you'll see a listing of your system specs (RAM, CPU, drives, etc).

During that time, press Ctrl+F11

If it doesn't appear, you might not have the PC Restore feature and will have to use the CDs that came with your laptop.

[edit]: Your laptop's manual can be found here. Jump to page 84.

Comments

[Force Flow]

What model is your Dell?

[theycallmemorty]

After some further investigation, the steps outlined above were not working because the Master Boot Record had changed and did not know about the Dell Recovery Partition. I had to burn a CD and boot from it in order to repair the partition and gain access to the Dell Recovery software.