Setting Up PC

[XFool]

This sounds like a question for Breelander.

My apologies in advance, it's rather long and a bit technical....

The background: My 'main computer' - with all emails and important financial information on it - used to be an ancient Compaq Deskpro EN running Windows XP. 'Bleeding Edge' I'm not...

It was, until one morning earlier this year I switched it on - and it wasn't. That's when I (re)discovered I hadn't backed up for a very long time. After much fretting in the end I went ahead with commercial disc recovery. After some time I emerged with a much lighter wallet and a little 1TB Transcend USB disc drive, with my 2GB of account data in one corner of the disc - I told them I thought it would fit on one of my USB sticks... Still, at least I now have something else to back up to.

Since then I have been using my Toshiba Win 8 notebook for browsing and webmail. On and off over the months(!) I have been meaning to get another desktop to set up as before from my recovered acount. Trouble was, a new PC meant Windows 10! OK, there are alternatives and cheaper ways of getting other versions of Windows, and I always fancied UNIX - but when I looked, things have obviously moved on since I last looked. There now appear to be more varieties of *nix than Windows application programs. I need to get sorted out soon to do my SA.

Second hand PC's are everywhere, but seem to now only come with Win 10 or Win 7. Then I found the Dell Financial Services lease site http://dellrefurbished.co.uk, they had ex lease PC's with Win 8.1 available! So I grabbed one, a dinky little Optiplex 7020.

Bearing in mind what happened with the Deskpro I thought I'd better take more care this time around. That's when I realised that I really don't have much idea what exactly is going on with 'Recovery' etc with the 'new' Dell (or the Toshiba for that matter). The only documentation with the Dell was a folded pamphlet with brief notes on it:

"My recovery disk was not included
Your refurbished system has a recovery media partition installed to facilitate reinstallation or creation of a recovery media disk.

Visit Dell.com/Support for more details on how to backup the recovery partition onto separate media."

And:

"How to reinstall the OS from the partitioned hard dive
Press the F8 key multiple times immediately after the on button is pushed

Select Repair Computer on the menu that appears

Log in and select Dell Factory Image Restore."

With Windows set up, as the Dell starts up there is a "Press F11 key for AOMEI One Key Recovery..."
Then the boot menu briefly gives two choices 'Windows 8.1 Pro' or 'AOMEI One Key Recovery'

On the Windows desktop there is a link 'DELL Recovery' - starting this shows it is indeed 'AOMEI One Key Recovery 1.6' from these people: https://www.backup-utility.com

They also do 'AOMEI Backupper' (not installed). The English leaves a bit to be desired but reviews seem quite good. (I know Macrium Reflect is the Go To program around here.)

Thing is, I realise I'm getting a bit lost in all this. The Dell has five partitions:

Recovery Partition - 100% Free
EFI System Partition - 100% Free
C: - NTFS 95% Free
AOMEI - FAT32 63% Free
AOMEI Recovery Partition - NTFS 38% Free

The Toshiba is similar with four:

Recovery Partition - 100% Free
EFI System Partition - 100% Free
Recovery Partition - 100% Free
C: - NTFS 87% Free

Questions - Firstly, why TWO 'Recovery Partitions on each machine, one a few hundred megabytes, the other ~10 gigabytes?

Secondly, as the AOMEI Recovery Partition on the Dell is 38% Free I guess it must already be occupied by the basic(?) Windows 8.1 Pro system to restore from. If I later use AOEMI One Key Recovery again to create a recovery partition, will I overwrite that existing Partition with my then current Windows setup? Strangely, the main(?) Toshiba Recovery Partition shows no file system type and as 100% Free, unlike the Dell.

I haven't found the Dell information on how to backup the recovery to another media - the free AOMEI won't do this AFAIK. Perhaps they mean use free AOMEI Backupper to do it?

Alternatively, I tried Windows 'Recovery' in Control Panel. It offered to create a Recovey Drive but NOT the "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" option (even in Admin account) as it was grayed out. On the Win 8 Toshiba it will allow me to "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" - There is a Toshiba 'Recovery Media Creator' program as well.

Then again, http://www.dell.com/support even has: "How to Download and Use the Dell OS Recovery Image in Microsoft Windows"

I'd really like to know how best to reliably restore the Dell to its as delivered state, if ever needed.

[Breelander]

This sounds like a question for Breelander.

Questions - Firstly, why TWO 'Recovery Partitions on each machine, one a few hundred megabytes, the other ~10 gigabytes?

The small recovery partition is the Windows 10/8 recovery environment, this is what you will boot to if (in W10) you select 'Settings > Update & Recovery > Recovery > Advanced Start-up'. The large one is, as you guessed, for the factory reset image. The two recovery partition are quite independent.

I haven't found the Dell information on how to backup the recovery to another media...

My only Dell had a clean install of the Microsoft 'plain-vanilla' Windows 10 on it, so I am not familiar with the 'Dell way' to reset the PC. I have found these Dell's intructions for W7/8.1/10.

Dell UK | How to create and use the Dell Recovery & Restore USB drive

Alternatively, I tried Windows 'Recovery' in Control Panel. It offered to create a Recovey Drive but NOT the "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" option (even in Admin account) as it was grayed out. ... I'd really like to know how best to reliably restore the Dell to its as delivered state, if ever needed.

AFAIK the "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" option is not part of a standard Windows install, at least, not in W10. It may be a custom 'extra' added by Dell.

Edit: I've just confirmed that, I have just run up a W8.1 VM and that doesn't show "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" in Control Panel either.

Not sure about W8.1, but in W10 creating a standard recovery drive from the Control Panel will run RecoveryDrive.exe from the System32 folder. By default this has a tick in the box for 'Back up system files to the recovery drive'. The 'system files' it includes are all the files required to do a clean install of Windows 10. In addition, when made on an OEM pre-installed W10 it will include all the install files OEM custom utilities and drivers. It is effectively a 'factory reset' drive, you can boot from it to install Windows 'as it came out of the box'.

My 'recovery option' of choice is a Macrium Reflect Free image, it avoids the need to reinstall all the programs you have installed for yourself.

HTH

[Breelander]

Alternatively, I tried Windows 'Recovery' in Control Panel. It offered to create a Recovey Drive but NOT the "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" option (even in Admin account) as it was grayed out....

I've just investigated that further in my W8.1 VM. The option to "Copy the Recovery Partition from the PC to the recovery drive" IS there in the 'create a recovery drive' utility for a standard W8.1 install, but it is greyed out for me too. That's because my VM does no have a recovery image partition.

In the case of your Dell it will be because the recovery image isn't a standard Microsoft one, rather it is in a proprietary Dell image format. For making a copy of that I'd guess the only way is by following the instructions in the Dell link I gave earlier.