gregorys Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Hi, My first post here looking for an answer hopefully you guys can help me.I'm imaging dell pcs with a recovery partition. Is there a way to not blow that partition away?The only way i have found to work is if i blow the recovery partition away and blow away the existing partition and create a new partition then format it and apply the image.I am using imagexHere are the steps i have been takingboot into imagexdisk partblow both exsiting partitions awayexit diskpartformat c:apply imagerebootsysprep is runeverything works.my goal is to keep the recovery partitionany ideas?Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treyoliver Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 I've had a similar issue with the Dell partition. The easiest way for me was to capture an image of the partition with imagex, and add it to my imaging process. This is the diskpart script that I use:select disk 0cleancreate part pri size=50 id=DEcreate part pri size=18000create part priselect part 1assign letter=qselect part 2activeassign letter=cselect part 3assign letter=dexitThis clears all existing partitions, and creates a 50 meg hidden Dell partition, a 18 gig C drive, and the rest of the drive for a D drive. I use the following batch file to call the diskpart.txt script, and to apply the images:@ECHO Offdiskpart /s x:\IMAGE\diskpart.txtCLSECHO Disk partitioning completesleep 5CLSECHO Formatting C: Driveformat C: /FS:NTFS /V:SYSTEM /Q /yCLSECHO C: Drive format completesleep 3CLSECHO Formatting D: driveformat D: /FS:NTFS /V:DATA /Q /yCLSECHO D: Drive format completesleep 3CLSECHO Formatting OEM partitionformat Q: /FS:FAT /yCLSECHO OEM Partition format completesleep 2imagex.exe /apply x:\IMAGE\OEMPARTIMAGE.wim 1 q:CLSECHO OEM Partition imaged successfullysleep 3CLSECHO Imaging C: Driveimagex.exe /apply x:\IMAGE\CDRIVE.wim 1 c:CLSECHO C: Drive imaged successfullysleep 3CLSECHO Imaging D: Driveimagex.exe /apply x:\IMAGE\DDRIVE.wim 1 d:CLSECHO D: Drive imaged successfullysleep 3CLSECHO IMAGE COMPLETE!!!sleep 5ExitThis turned out to be a lot easier than trying to preserve the existing OEM partition. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda43 Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Imagex not withstanding, what are you trying to accomplish as your end result???I work with HD's with Restore Partitions on them all the time and I've never "blown away" the factory 'Restore Partition' in the process, unless I intended to. Once an OS is all set up, tweaked and tuned and your programs and internet email is all set up, make an Image file of the C: partition to a bootable DVD with a program like Norton's Ghost and you can 'blow away' that restore partition, because it's no longer needed.Again, "What are you trying to accomplish?"Curious minds want to know. Andromeda43 B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregorys Posted November 8, 2007 Author Share Posted November 8, 2007 Sorry Ill try this againI loading software and all my setting onto a pc to put on other computers,I am using imagex to capture and deploy the imageIf i dont delete the recovery partition the image will not load.It comes with with the error hal.dll is missing.If i delete the recovery partition it seems to work finepartition 1 is hidden and that is the recovery partitionparititon 2 is where the os is located.does that make a little more sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 (edited) Because you install XP on the other computer on the "first partition", it will boot dodgy when you reimage it on the 2nd partition of your first computer, that's why it does work when you wipe the Dell partition. So create your image as a 2nd partition and it will work.Also unless Imagex is totally different of Ghost, it is not needed to format as the image will overwrite formattings and Labels. Edited November 8, 2007 by Ponch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesurfer Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Imagex is totally different than Ghost.I once tried to recover an imagex image to a partition that already had an installation and it did not format the previous installation. Reason is imagex is file based. Ghost, I believe, is sector based. Thus, when restoring an imagex image, you are restoring the file structure and the previous file structure remains intact. Therefore, when I restored my image, all the programs I had installed remained intact but the registry files were overwritten. Therefore, it seemed as though I still had programs installed, like MS Office. But when I tried to run Word, it would not run because registry values were missing.Makes sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Yes it does, thanks. Next time I'll read some info about what I'm commenting, I was right to be cautious before my statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregorys Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 ya hd does have to be formated, anyone else got any other solutions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 I'll think about an other solution when you've tried the first one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregorys Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 The first one is no good. I need to use the recovery partition because it is specifically for the company im working for so there is no way i can recreate the one already on the drive. It comes from the factory like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 Ok, maybe I wasn't clear. What I'd do is.... on your "other" computer, create two primary partitions instead of one and install your XP in the 2nd partition. Get your image from that 2nd partition so you can apply it to the 2nd partition of your computer. So it boots the 2nd partition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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