Delete Dell stuff from hard drive?

My 9 month old Dell desktop has too much junk on it, a hidden EISA partition, the C: Boot partition (not junk) and a D: Restore partition. I won’t need the D: recovery partition once I start the backup.

I am thinking I will use Drive Backup to make a Clone of the C: partition to the external HD, then format (or is it repartition ?) the internal drive back to one C: partition (I don’t know if I can do this with Windows Disk Management or maybe SwissKnife?), and then clone the partition from the external HD to the internal HD.

The Cloning Partitions Chapter in you manual is straight forward, the rest leaves me in the dark.

I know what I want to do but I am not sure of the terminology and procedures.

I welcome your comments.

 

Hello nodsirrah,

You can do the following without using another application.

• Back up just the C: partition to your external drive.

• Create and boot from the recovery media, launch the full program

• Delete the other partitions (Dell recovery console and recovery partitions)

• Restore c: from your back up on your external. Resize the partition on the restore as desired

Should boot fine after the restore. If not boot to the recovery CD and verify the Boot.ini is correct, C: is active and update the MBR.

 

Comments:

 

Don't know what comment you want - it seems pretty starightforward to me.

 

Thanks Cisco,
You make it sound quite easy, even to a Novice like me!

 

Well I flunked my first test. I thought I followed all your previous steps. I deleted everything but the C: drive, restored the archive. Now I can only boot using the CD. I tried everything I could think of but I when I reboot, select the correct drive I get "No boot device available etc..
I have no idea how to verify the Boot.ini is correct, I don't know how to make C: active or how to update the MBR.
After 5 hours my 76 year old brain is dead and my wife is upset because I am using her laptop to send this SOS.
Please help!

 

Boot.ini? Which operating system have you restored?

I should be able to help when I know which - is it XP or Vista or 7. Only XP and earlier use boot.ini.

 

Some comments for future cases:

1. It is not worth the effort. Dell partitions are tricky to dealt with, and besides they are very small (at least in this older Dell computer). And the restore partition can be useful eventually.

2. If there is a Dell partition “before” (to the left of) the system partition and is deleted, there will be boot problems when the image is restored. These problems should be solvable with the Paragon Linux recovery disk, as noted above, but this process is not straightforward and should be explained in more detail (I have not done it). And I doubt that only updating the MBR would solve the problems. To update the MBR: Drive Backup > Hard Disk > Update MBR.

 

After rewriting the MBR, check the newly restored partition is marked Active - if not, rt click it and mark Active then click Apply.

Paragon should automatically update bcd to correct for the new offset during the restore process.

Just in case - use the boot corrector on the cd to correct bcd ( or if the restored o/s is XP or earlier - use the boot corrector to correct boot.ini).

If you still can't boot after the above 3 steps - tell us exactly what o/s and bit version it is - will be able to replace the boot critical files for you.

 

Sorry, I am using XP Home SP3.
How do I get to the MBR if I can only boot the WinPE Recovery CD?
When I deleted both the partitions I fully expected I could right click on the remaining C: drive and select "Make this bootable or active or something", I knew I was in deep dodo when it didn't!

 

Rebuild mbr and mark active are really partitioninig functions. Are there no partitioning functions on the WInPE cd ? There must be.

Rt click on the partition in the Disk Map to get the mark
Active Option:




Rt click in the little area above the partition (see where the arrow is) to get the Update MBR option:

 

Computer came with Vista, it was changed to XP SP-2 the following week and upgraded to SP-3 a few months ago.

The boot partition must have been on one of the 2 partitions I deleted.

I tried everything I could think of yesterday and still can't boot to C:. By the time I quit I was too confused to post this reply.

Disk Proterties:
Basic Disk 0 298GB
0 Primary, File System free, 14.7GB
1 Extended, File System is blank, 283GB
2 Logical, File System NTFS, 283GB, 19GB used.
3 Primary, File System free, 10.3MB

Main Menu>Partition>Mark Partition Active is greyed out. Right clicking anywhere did not have Mark Partition Active, not even greyed out.
I upgraded MBR a few times.
I used Boot corrector a few times.
Show Disk Map is greyed out.
I recovered the Dell partition and still could not boot so I deleted it again.

During installation it said to use Recovery Media Builder to make a Recovery Disc, I thought that meant if I did not have the WinPE disk. So during my desparation yesterday I used the laptop to make one. It has different stuff on it, maybe I should have made one and used it during recovery.

I used the Check Recovery Disk Wizard:
WinPE is not a bootable recovery disk.
Recovery Media Builder is a bootable media builder.

I recovered the Dell partition and still could not boot so I deleted it again.

I believe the original instructions I received were too meager and that it got me in trouble being a novice.

I would really be in deep dodo if I did not have my wife's laptop as my lifeline to this site.

Where do I go from here?

 

There's the problem straight away.

The partition containing the boot critical files has to be Active.

A logical drive by definition cannot be marked Active.

You need to boot Paragon partition manager and change the partition to Primary.

Then Mark it Active.

If you don't have the Paragon partition Manager - they don't do a free bootable one on their site with that function.

I am reluctant to mention another product, but it's free , so , use the Partition Wizard bootable disc to do it.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/download/pwhe41.iso

d/l it, burn it to cd with an isoburner ( do not format the cd)

View attachment Iso-Burner.txt

( d/l the above attachment - change the extension to .zip- then extract the .zip - that is free isoburner)

Boot the partitioning cd on the ailing machine, rt click the Logical drive , select Make Primary, OK, Apply.

Rt click again, select Mark Active, OK, Apply.


From your description , it sounds like the boot critical files will be there.( for XP they are NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM And BOOT.INI).

You should be able to boot straight in.

 

S1W2, Thanks for hanging in here with me.
I downloaded PW, had problems trying to figure out the ISO but finally managed to burn PW to a disk.
I got the welcome screen and selected to boot from PW, many lines of info ran up the screen. Next came "Please Choose Display Resolution", followed by 4 choices, however, when I tried to enter anything after "Please Choice" I got an < (except pointing up), then [[4" 1bin can't access tty, job control turned off.
I know for a fact there is no one else messing with computers that comes up with "We never had that problem before" from Tech Support more than me.
What now?
Desperate Don
Since I am bored I downloaded another pw, same results.

 

Hi Don,

When it asks you to choose, You need to make sure the Num Lock on your keyboard is on. ( press the button that says Num Lock - near top right of keyboard - a little light should come on)

Then type 1 then press enter.

Otherwise type 2 then press enter.

 

I got past the Choice stage with setting Numlock and got PW to come up, unfortunately there are no options for Mark Partion Primary, nor is any greyed out. I looked in Help and there is nothing regarding Marking Partitions.
Whoops, both Mark Partition Primary and Mark Active are in "Modify".
Now I'll try rebooting.
During booting it says NTDLR is missing, and probably the others are also.
I searched my XP Home disk and they are not on it.
Don

 

Hi don,

Progress is made - well done.

Using PW - click on the partition and select Explore - and see if those files are anywhere to be seen on the Primary partition. You are looking for NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM And BOOT.INI.


If the files are not there, you can replace them from your XP installation cd.

 

Hi S1W2,
None of those files are on the C: partition. I bet Dell put them on their Recovery partition that I deleted.
I did a search for Missing NTDLR and got MS's instructions. When I finally got to C:\Windows I entered copy e:\i386\ntldr and got "Access is denied", I must have tried 6 times being very careful. E is definitly my CD drive, but I even tried D and F just for kicks, nothing.
How lucky can I get?
Don

 

You can find your drive letters from the command prompt on XP cd; ( at least you can with Vista/7 - so try it)

Diskpart

sel disk 0

lis par

exi.

 

S1W2,
I tried this with 2 different XP disks, C:\ e:\i386\ntldr and got "Access is denied".
I tried diskpart and this is what came up:
305243MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
Unpartitioned space 8MB
D: Partition 2 [Unknown} 15037MB
C: Partition 1 (Local Drive) [NTFS] 290190MB (272785 MB free)
Unpartitioned space 8MB
Unknown Disk
(There is no disk in this Drive)

There was no other Drives shown.

I disconnected the USB external Hard Drive, CD burner and Hub for printers.
Rebooted and deleted the D: partition, rebooted and now it shows:
305243MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

C: Partition 1 (Local Drive) [NTFS] 290190MB (272785 MB free)
Unpartitioned space 8MB

I went back to C:\ copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\ hit enter, SUCCESSFUL
C:\ copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\ hit enter, SUCCESSFULL
I rebooted without the XP CD and my windows desktop came up
I looked at Explorer and there is no D:Recovery drive.

4 days, 3 sleepless nights and 10,000 stressful man hours later I am done. Now it is time to do another Backup and watch the Nascar races.

I cannot begin to express my appreciaton for you sticking with me on this, thank you so much.

Delighted Don

 

Hi Don,

My Pleasure. Glad it worked for you in the end.

 

I am just trying to avoid some backup/recovery problems by asking questions in advance. Too many backup/restore/recovery procedures seem to be lacking when it comes time to actually do a recovery.

In reading this thread, it seems like the paragon drive backup recovery media does not get populated with all the tools needed to actually do a recovery. Since I am planning to use the tool with a netbook and a USB flash drive as the recovery media this could be problematic.

It seems like an additional tool for creating and editing partitions is needed.

Did I miss something?

 

Hi John,

The Drive Backup products do include a number of partitioning functions ( see screenshot) - all you are likely to need for Backup and restore purposes.




However, the Partition Manager products obviously include a lot more features - like converting Primary to logical, or Dynamic disk to Basic, etc. all without data loss.



The Hard Disk Manager products include all the functions of both, of course.

Don had a logical drive he wanted to use as the System partition - therefore needed to convert Logical to Primary.

You can do that with the PM or HDM products.

I hope to get the Hard Disk Manager 10, when it is released - it is an awesome program.

Hope it helps

 

If the partition I backed up was a 'logical' partition (from a dell system), and I am doing a recovery to a new (blank) hard drive, it sounds like I might run into the same problem as don and I would need to convert the 'logical' partition to a 'primary' partition after restoring it to the new drive.

Can I do that with just the paragon drive backup recovery media or do I need to put another utility onto the recovery media for this step?

 

Hi John,

There must be also a Primary partition on the Dell machine, which is System , Active - otherwise the o/s wouldn't boot, obviously.

The boot critical files will be on that - probably a good idea to image that, too.

Restore them both - then it will be the same setup you have now.

If, you currently have the o/s installed on a logical drive - and the boot critical files installed on the System partition and you only want to backup the logical drive, you can do that.

You would then restore the logical drive image back to where it was.

The System partition would be untouched.

The danger there is you haven't backed up the System partition . If there is a problem with the boot files on the System partition - restoring just the logical drive won't help.

I would make backup images of both.

Please post a screenshot of the Disk Management window for your Dell machine.