Dell Recovery Disk specific XP version?

H

Hogweed

Hi – I’m trying to restore a laptop which has been comprehensively wrecked by
a virus (yt8a.exe – look forward to it). It's a Dell, and isn’t supplied with
an XP or recovery disk as such. Dell expect you to prepare your own recovery
disk, using a utility on the laptop. Unfortunately, I can no longer boot XP,
though I can see all the files on the disk when I attach it to another
computer as a slave, using an adapter.

There’s an i386 directory on the disk – can I make a basic XP CD to restore
her laptop just using that? I know from experience that I can't just use any
old XP CD from another computer with her license key – will using her i386
directory install the correct version to use with her key?

I can’t see any other way of restoring her computer... urgent of course.

Thanks for any help provided.
 
R

R. McCarty

There are several different i386 folders on a XP instance. You can
identify the source folder if the installation modules are present. They
are WinNT.Exe and WinNT32.Exe.

You can burn the i386 to a CD-R, but your problem is booting to
the XP startup mode. Microsoft makes available a set of Floppy disk
setups that once booted transfer setup to the CD disk.

The various types of installation disks are controlled by a variable in
a file named Setupp.Ini. The Variable PID has a numerical vale that
identifies whether the disk is OEM/Retail, Full or Upgrade media.

What you are attempting isn't impossible, it just takes a lot of prep
work to make sure that everything will work.
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Hogweed said:
Hi - I'm trying to restore a laptop which has been comprehensively wrecked
by
a virus (yt8a.exe - look forward to it). It's a Dell, and isn't supplied
with
an XP or recovery disk as such. Dell expect you to prepare your own
recovery
disk, using a utility on the laptop. Unfortunately, I can no longer boot
XP,
though I can see all the files on the disk when I attach it to another
computer as a slave, using an adapter.

There's an i386 directory on the disk - can I make a basic XP CD to
restore
her laptop just using that? I know from experience that I can't just use
any
old XP CD from another computer with her license key - will using her i386
directory install the correct version to use with her key?

I can't see any other way of restoring her computer... urgent of course.

Thanks for any help provided.
Click to expand...

I have never seen a recent Dell laptop without a recovery CD. Are you really
sure yours doesn't have one? Have you consulted the manual that came with
the laptop?

AFAIK, all suppliers of PCs with Windows preloaded are required either to
provide a bootable Windows CD or else a bootable recovery CD. Yours would be
no exception. Make sure to save all important files (including your EMail
files!) prior to attempting a recovery.
 
H

Hogweed

Heh – depends on what you mean by “recentâ€! It’s an Insipiron 2650, I guess
about 5-7 years old now. Of course, she can't find the manual either, but
still has the various disks supplied with it, and none of them is anything
like a recovery disk, nor contains for example an i386 folder.

So I looked on their website, and it gave me this procedure for preparing
your own XP disk:

“The Dell OS Recovery Utility allows the creation of ONE operating system
CD. This means that you can make one Windows® CD for backup purposes.
 
H

Hogweed

So could I, for example, use some files from any old XP disk, plus her i386
directory, to make a disk which would install OK on her machine using her COA
key? Obviously I’d use Nero or something to make a bootable CD with the files
on it.

So maybe I could use the other files I find on any XP CD, and the Setupp.Ini
file from her machine...?
 
R

R. McCarty

You can use the Slipstreaming procedure to create a disk. Trying to
post the exact steps/details is beyond the scope of the NG. The way
you describe creating a disk modifying Setupp.Ini may work. You'd
want to create a SP3 disk anyway to avoid SP installs and the high #
of individual Hotfixes.

Sorry I can't provide precise information.
 
H

Hogweed

Thanks Steve – just trying to find if there's an equivalent page on the UK
site, but it appears to be down today... trouble is, as so often with IT,
being without her PC for the few days that’d take to organise is very bad, so
I've got to persevere in he meantime. But I’ll certainly try and take
advantage of that if I can get to the UK site.
 
J

Jim

Hi – I’m trying to restore a laptop which has been comprehensively wrecked by
a virus (yt8a.exe – look forward to it). It's a Dell, and isn’t supplied with
an XP or recovery disk as such. Dell expect you to prepare your own recovery
disk, using a utility on the laptop. Unfortunately, I can no longer boot XP,
though I can see all the files on the disk when I attach it to another
computer as a slave, using an adapter.

There’s an i386 directory on the disk – can I make a basic XP CD to restore
her laptop just using that? I know from experience that I can't just use any
old XP CD from another computer with her license key – will using her i386
directory install the correct version to use with her key?

I can’t see any other way of restoring her computer... urgent of course.

Thanks for any help provided.
Click to expand...

When you bootup see if there is a blue band across the top of the
sreen , if there is try pressing ctrl + enter . Will take you to the
recovery partition .
 
H

havenlad

I would be very surprised if any of these ideas work. Dell laptops are
horrible when goosed. If you can't respre from the restore partition, it is
doubtful an XP Boot disk will work as they are designed to not be able to
boot up from one of them. If you know how to slipstream, make sure you
slipstream the appropriate CD ROM drivers and whatever connection method you
use, make sure the driver for that is working, at a guess that would be your
10/100 card.

As a last resort, and this is the route I am taking with one of mine, buy
the rescue disk from Dell.

I hope you prove me wrong.
 
S

Steve

Just curious... Why do you need an "equivalent" page? Can't access the
page or Dell won't ship to UK, ??
Steve
 
H

Hogweed

Well, I didn't get as far as trying to get them to send a disk to the UK –
but in general, when I've tried to work with US sites for manufacturers
before, they always push me to the UK site. And of course postage would be a
lot quicker. The UK site came back up, and I've requested one. Unacknowledged
so far...

Anyway, after working on this damn thing for perhaps 14 hours, I gave up and
did an image restore using Ghost last night. She’s lost some recent stuff,
but the relief of having the laptop back and working again more than
compensated.

Thanks a lot to everybody who tried to help me here – it really makes a
difference to know you’re not alone sometimes!
 
B

Bill Sharpe

Pegasus said:
I have never seen a recent Dell laptop without a recovery CD. Are you really
sure yours doesn't have one? Have you consulted the manual that came with
the laptop?

AFAIK, all suppliers of PCs with Windows preloaded are required either to
provide a bootable Windows CD or else a bootable recovery CD. Yours would be
no exception. Make sure to save all important files (including your EMail
files!) prior to attempting a recovery.
Click to expand...
My 2-year-old HP desktop and 2-month-old Compaq laptop did not include
any bootable CD's, just a recovery partition on the hard disk that
allows restoring the computer to its factory-shipped configuration. Both
manuals, skimpy as they were, recommended creating restoration disks as
one of the first tasks in setting up the computer.

My 5-year-old Dell laptop did have a Windows CD as well as several other
CD's that came with the machine.

Bill
 
H

Hogweed

Yeah... at my very advanced age, I've already learned to feel a little
trepidation when it comes to SP3 - some laptops seem not to take well to it
at all, so I've avoided it so far!
 

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