[TriLUG] OT: Dell desktop, recovering boot and partition info

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Jason Evans wrote:

> A lot of machines don't come with backup disks anymore, 
> instead they have partitions with the OS image on it, so a 
> factory refresh can performed from the boot menu and/or 
> BIOS (but that's rare in my experience).

I wondered how people handled reinstalling if they don't 
have install CDs (which they don't seem to have anymore).

> My guess is that this vfat partition is the recovery 
> partition and those .mdm files are the OS image in some 
> sort of proprietary image file.

The whole first partition is 48M. The winxp install comes on 
a CD and I would guess then that it's about 600M, so the 48M 
can't be the whole install. Is the 48M partition to boot the 
machine and pull down the Windows install from Dell?

Joe

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Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
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