Laptop HDD Recovery

Here are some manufacturers that use the hidden partition restore trick to get the laptop back to factory condition
out of the box.  Beware though, of those that had the hard drives replaced may not have that hidden partition.

Dell
1. Reboot, and press Ctrl + F11 at the Dell logo.
2. The Dell™ PC Restore by Symantec screen will come up.
3. Select "Restore" or use the Tab key to highlight it and press Enter.
4. if you wish to continue, click "Confirm", or use the Tab key to
highlight it and press Enter.
5. When the utility is finished, click "Finish", or use the Tab key to
highlight it and press Enter.

HP/Compaq
1. Reboot, and repeatedly press F10 at the HP logo until the recovery
screen appears.
2. When the recovery screen appears, press "Next" and then "Yes" to
perform a non-destructive recovery.
3. To perform a destructive recovery, click "Advanced" and then "Yes".
4. After the recovery is finished, the laptop will reboot.

Gateway
1. Reboot, and press F11 or the R key to start the recovery process.
2. Select either "Full System Restore (Destructive)" or "Full System
Restore (With Backup)"*.
3. Click "Next", and then click "Yes" to confirm the recovery process.
4.Wait for the computer to restore itself. When it is done, click
"Reboot" to reboot the computer.

*Full System Restore With Backup preserves data in the My Documents
folder, but requires 4 GB of disk space.

Toshiba
In the event of a hard disk drive failure, you may be able to restore
the drive to the factory default state using the on-disk Toshiba HDD
Recovery Utility (in the special partition on the hard disk drive).
You can elect to restore the entire hard disk drive to the factory
default state, or to restore only the C: drive -- without affecting
other partitions (for example, a D: drive) -- or to change the size
allocated to your C: drive, and then restore it.
To recover your hard disk drive from a system failure using the
utilities stored on your computer's HDD, follow these steps:

1. If the computer is running, shut it down -- by clicking Start, then
Shut Down, then Shut Down again.
2. Press and hold the 0 (zero) key on your keyboard and then depress
the computer's power switch. When the computer turns on, the Toshiba
HDD Recovery Utility screen will appear, presenting three options.


Asus
How to Recover System from Hidden Parititions?
1. Switch on the notebook. Press [F9] when ASUS logo appeared.
2. Select "Recover"choice. This is also identical to the interface
from Recovery CD.
3. Confirm whether to proceed with "Recover". Must click "Y"three
times to proceed with recovering.
4.  After the actions are confirmed, the system will begin "Recover"
5.  When Recover process is completet, please reboot the system by
holding down [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] three keys at once.
6.  Microsoft Logo appeared
7. Windows XP - User Registration Page

Packard Bell
When the Packard Bell logo appears, press the
F11 key for a few seconds to start the Recovery Program.

NEC
Using the F11 key during system boot:
a. Power on your computer or restart it.
b. Once the NEC logo appears, press the F11 key.

EI
To start the recovery, press the F10 key when you first turn on your
computer. Tap F10 repeatedly until you see 'Starting System Recovery'.
From there you can choose to do Format or a Non-destructive recovery.

Back to Utils

E-mail comments to Lon Jarvis jarvislb@jmu.edu
last updated 11/7/08