Dell PC Restore Command
Over the past 6 months I've run into a couple of brand new Dell machines that after running for a couple of hours, had this same problem. They both showed only the desktop with no icons and no Start menu/task bar. In each case, booting into safe mode worked but didn't shed much light on how to fix it. Dell's tech support got me started with the PC Restore process as the best fix.
Since I don't look forward to calling Dell's tech support again for this issue I just wanted to put right here on my blog the way to trigger the on-disk factory reset or recovery procedure: Repeatedly tap Ctrl-F11 just as the computer is booting up. That is, from the computer completely off, you can hold down Ctrl, hit the power button , and tap F11 every second or so until the Dell Symantec recovery process starts.
When I did it the other day it showed the process was run by version 8.3 of Symantec's ghost. That's a little extra trivia I'm throwing in so if you find something different when you run your PC Restore feel free to drop me a line. Hopefully you don't have to run this but if you do, you can save yourself 15-30 minutes of useless troubleshooting. Good luck fellow techies.
If you know how to run other hidden utilities, who not leave it for me as a comment? Pretty please? You may save a lot of people a lot of time...including me.
Since I don't look forward to calling Dell's tech support again for this issue I just wanted to put right here on my blog the way to trigger the on-disk factory reset or recovery procedure: Repeatedly tap Ctrl-F11 just as the computer is booting up. That is, from the computer completely off, you can hold down Ctrl, hit the power button , and tap F11 every second or so until the Dell Symantec recovery process starts.
When I did it the other day it showed the process was run by version 8.3 of Symantec's ghost. That's a little extra trivia I'm throwing in so if you find something different when you run your PC Restore feel free to drop me a line. Hopefully you don't have to run this but if you do, you can save yourself 15-30 minutes of useless troubleshooting. Good luck fellow techies.
If you know how to run other hidden utilities, who not leave it for me as a comment? Pretty please? You may save a lot of people a lot of time...including me.
posted by David at
10:25 PM
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://davidsterry.com/images/fsf.png){kind=small}
4 Comments:
hi there, thanks for the useful info. my dell laptop is having problems lately due to some unknown and deadly virus and i want to perform dell pc restore. i wanted to ask someone who has actually performed dell pc restore that what happens after the computer reboots again? are the drivers still installed? what about modem, wireless card, other hardware and software programs that came with dell laptop, like sonic, word perfect etc?
By
Aisha, At
5/30/07 9:50 AM
The restore feature returns the computer to the factory settings and just how it was when you first got it brand new.
By
sdemon51214484, At
5/18/08 1:46 PM
Awesome - dell wanted to me call and pay for software support!
Now - how to get stuff off my hard drive!
By
Pete, At
11/4/08 7:08 AM
@pete You can remove the hard drive physically and connect it to a USB to SATA or IDE adapter. If you look at the hard drive, if it has a wide ribbon type cable it's IDE. Those adapters can be gotten for $20-30 online...then you can connect it to another working computer to do the transfer.
By
David, At
11/4/08 12:37 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home