[usasma]

FYI - I just checked at work and the Dell S15-158B Studio laptop comes with recovery disks (so I presume that all Dell's still come with recovery disks). So, if you didn't receive them in the box that came with the computer I'd suggest contacting Dell for a replacement set.

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Hi Usasma, thank you again for taking the time to reply to me. I've spent the last few days fixing my pc and researching into *trying* to create a Dell factory restore disk.

Fortunately, for ACER, I used the acer empowering technology to restore my laptop back to the time I created an image.

However, I have a Dell Inspiron 530s and I called a sales lady at Dell to ask about the recovery CD and she said that Dell don't ship them anymore, if I wanted a set I would have to pay 25GBP - which I think is quite unnecessarily expensive.

I've been told now that most PC manufacturers don't ship recovery disks like Acer and Compaq, who installs a program like eRecovery Management and prompts you to create a factory image CD; apparently DELL ships their pcs out with only the factory restore files in the D drive partition and a separate Windows Vista O.S. CD with it - which is what I have. I'm just really wary that on an event that 1)my hard drive fails 2)someone else accidentally deletes files off the D partition or 3)D drive becomes corrupt, then I will have a virtually unrestorable PC.

I've bought the software you mentioned, the Acronis and there is a Create Rebootable Rescue Media option and I don't know if that will create a factory restore disk for my dell? There are sooooo many terms for Factory restore disk i.e. recovery disk, emergency boot cd, system restore cd, rebootable rescue cd - I've no idea if they all refer to the same thing. Do you think that will create a factory restore cd in an event that I can't get into my O.S.?

Thanks again!

Edited by MizzLi, 11 June 2009 - 09:44 AM.

[MizzLi]

Hi Usasma, thank you again for taking the time to reply to me. I've spent the last few days fixing my pc and researching into *trying* to create a Dell factory restore disk.

Fortunately, for ACER, I used the acer empowering technology to restore my laptop back to the time I created an image.

However, I have a Dell Inspiron 530s and I called a sales lady at Dell to ask about the recovery CD and she said that Dell don't ship them anymore, if I wanted a set I would have to pay 25GBP - which I think is quite unnecessarily expensive.

I've been told now that most PC manufacturers don't ship recovery disks like Acer and Compaq, who installs a program like eRecovery Management and prompts you to create a factory image CD; apparently DELL ships their pcs out with only the factory restore files in the D drive partition and a separate Windows Vista O.S. CD with it - which is what I have. I'm just really wary that on an event that 1)my hard drive fails 2)someone else accidentally deletes files off the D partition or 3)D drive becomes corrupt, then I will have a virtually unrestorable PC.

I've bought the software you mentioned, the Acronis and there is a Create Rebootable Rescue Media option and I don't know if that will create a factory restore disk for my dell? There are sooooo many terms for Factory restore disk i.e. recovery disk, emergency boot cd, system restore cd, rebootable rescue cd - I've no idea if they all refer to the same thing. Do you think that will create a factory restore cd in an event that I can't get into my O.S.?

Thanks again!

Edited by MizzLi, 11 June 2009 - 09:44 AM.

[MizzLi]

I've also got an issue with my Firefox browser its the 35 beta 99 and it starts up slowly, loads pages slowly, opens new tabs slowly and when trying to load sites such as www.runescape.com it crashes and turns white. I'm surprised that after a reformat, it's playing already? help! I have uninstalled it and installed older versions but I get the same thing. *sigh*

[usasma]

The Acronis will create a bootable CD that will let you restore your computer - but you'll also have to create an image of the computer.

The image is the actual recovery files while the bootable CD will let you get into an operating system in order to restore the files in case the hard drive dies.

So, you'll need something big enough to store the image. It may be a couple of CD's or DVD's, or it can be an external drive. You'll be using the option to create an image of the entire hard drive. The good thing about using an external drive is that you'll be able to keep several images (they're very big), so that you can restore to a certain point in time.

For example, if you make an image today and your hard drive fails in a year - then you'll be able to restore the system (with a new hard drive) to the condition it was in today. So you'd be missing all the updates and programs that you installed over the year. So periodically make another image (or an incremental image) in order to keep the system current.

[MizzLi]

The Acronis will create a bootable CD that will let you restore your computer - but you'll also have to create an image of the computer.

The image is the actual recovery files while the bootable CD will let you get into an operating system in order to restore the files in case the hard drive dies.

So, you'll need something big enough to store the image. It may be a couple of CD's or DVD's, or it can be an external drive. You'll be using the option to create an image of the entire hard drive. The good thing about using an external drive is that you'll be able to keep several images (they're very big), so that you can restore to a certain point in time.

For example, if you make an image today and your hard drive fails in a year - then you'll be able to restore the system (with a new hard drive) to the condition it was in today. So you'd be missing all the updates and programs that you installed over the year. So periodically make another image (or an incremental image) in order to keep the system current.

Both my system is finally updated, and back to normal. I'm a bit shocked at how my RAM memory is upto 80% now compared to 50% before the machines went funny, now it's just slow! :/ Must be the updated programs or something, nothing is newly added!

But thanks very much for your help, it's been greatly appreciated!