DELL hidden OEM & RECOVERY partition.

Discussion in 'Windows 7' started by lukin, Apr 5, 2011.

  1. lukin

    lukin MDL Novice

    Aug 30, 2009
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    #1 lukin, Apr 5, 2011
    Hi everyone!,

    I'd like to replace my Hitashi 160g original hard drive that shipped with my Dell optiplex 780 with a Samsung 1T and transfer only the hidden oem & Dell recovery partition (without the current system; fresh install) to the new hard drive.

    Could not find the clear answer yet in a multiboot environment...by that i mean i'm planning to triple boot ubuntu, windows 7 and Hackintosh and still retain the Dell's factory shipped state.

    I've got "Acronis True Image Home 2011" lying around if that helps at all, but is it even possible?:confused:

    if so How do i pull that off, can you explain please, i'm no expert or nothing but i'm willing to learn.:eek:
     
  2. tcntad

    tcntad MDL Guru

    Oct 26, 2009
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    #2 tcntad, Apr 5, 2011
    Not a laptop?

    Anyway, make a backup of the recoverypartition with acronis and restore it to the new drive. If you do have a recoverypartition. Moms Fujitsu siemens doesnt, comes with discs..
     
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  3. lukin

    lukin MDL Novice

    Aug 30, 2009
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    #3 lukin, Apr 5, 2011
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2011
    (OP)
    Thx tcntad & acrsn!!!,

    No, it's not a laptop, it's an optiplex 780 DT (Desktop).

    it came with a win 7 pro installation & system disk.

    I'll see about Acronis when i get some free time.
     
  4. CTS

    CTS MDL Novice

    Apr 8, 2011
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    #4 CTS, Apr 8, 2011
    HELP!! I really want to just be able to clone the OEM partition so that I have it on the new hard drive. I need to be able to 'clean install' on the new drive now and in the future. So, how can you move that OEM partition to a new drive. EZ Gig 3 didn't work. I'm not spending $50 on Acronis to find out it doesn't work either. Plus, I need this for other manufacturers too like Toshiba, not just DELL. There has to be a way to do this.

    Thanks
    CTS
     
  5. urie

    urie retired mod

    May 21, 2007
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    #5 urie, Apr 8, 2011
  6. venu

    venu MDL Addicted

    Oct 16, 2009
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    #6 venu, Apr 8, 2011
    One way to "move" that recovery partition is to make a set of recovery disks. Use dell datasafe or whatever recovery manager dell's provided on that computer.

    Other than that, you can also copy off the contents of the recovery partition. Boot from any boot cd with a grafical shell (unless you are fine with the command prompt), browse to the recovery partition and copy. There should be one or more .wim files plus maybe some catalog or log files. You can restore the wims to a hard drive with imagex.