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Creating Recovery Drives

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Boris

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Apr 19, 2020, 5:23:03 PM4/19/20
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I have an Inspiron 5559 laptop, that I got in June 2017, shipped with
Windows 10 Home Premium (1709 at the time?).

I used the on board "Create a recovery drive" program then to make a USB
recovery drive. All went fine. About a year and a half later, as I'm
organizing all my USB drives, I could't tell which was for this Dell
5559...poor labeling on my part. I created another USB recovery drive in
November, 2017.

My question is, whenever one creates a recovery drive using the machine's
(Windows) program, is the OS that created on the recovery drive, the
current Windows verion that is running on the machine, or is it the
original 'as shipped' by the factory version.

I would think the program creates at least the currently running version,
and perhaps the factory shipped version. Not sure why one would want the
factory shipped version (especially in my case, four years later), unless
the machine was fairly new, and hadn't required any updates/upgrades, and
the user was ok with starting anew.

If the currently running version is what's created every time a recovery
drive is made, seems sensible to create a new one once in a while. Yes?

Thanks.

MissRiaElaine

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Apr 19, 2020, 6:49:09 PM4/19/20
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I think it's whatever you have installed, but not 100% sure as I rarely
use Windows any more. I do seem to recall that if you go to Dell's
support site it only offers you a copy of whatever was installed when
the machine left the factory (in my case Win7).



--
Ria in Aberdeen

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Steve

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Apr 20, 2020, 12:56:32 PM4/20/20
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Hi,

The "Create a recovery drive" program is from Windows, not Dell. So it
will not use the Dell recovery partition or any other way of making the
drive recover to an "as shipped" version of your OS. It would be good if
it gave you that option, IMO.
It's a good idea to create a new one once in a while, Microsoft suggest
annually. More info here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026852/windows-create-a-recovery-drive

Kind regards,
Steve

MissRiaElaine

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Apr 20, 2020, 1:07:37 PM4/20/20
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On 20/04/2020 17:56, Steve wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The "Create a recovery drive" program is from Windows, not Dell. So it
> will not use the Dell recovery partition or any other way of making the
> drive recover to an "as shipped" version of your OS. It would be good if
> it gave you that option, IMO.
> It's a good idea to create a new one once in a while, Microsoft suggest
> annually. More info here:
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026852/windows-create-a-recovery-drive
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Steve

See the Dell support site here
https://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/drivers/osiso/WT64A

Steve

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Apr 22, 2020, 4:30:56 PM4/22/20
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On 20/04/2020 19:07, MissRiaElaine wrote:
> On 20/04/2020 17:56, Steve wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> The "Create a recovery drive" program is from Windows, not Dell. So it
>> will not use the Dell recovery partition or any other way of making
>> the drive recover to an "as shipped" version of your OS. It would be
>> good if it gave you that option, IMO.
>> It's a good idea to create a new one once in a while, Microsoft
>> suggest annually. More info here:
>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026852/windows-create-a-recovery-drive
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Steve
>
> See the Dell support site here
> https://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/drivers/osiso/WT64A
>
>
Well that is interesting!
I didn't know about that. I had a look for my old Inspiron 17R SE 7720
(shipped in October 2012) and there were no images or other options
available.
Then I had a look for my not-quite-as-old Latitude E5450 (shipped April
2016), and I had the option to download a Windows 8.1 image for manual
install.
So for a recent, still in warranty XPS 13 7390 laptop, I was given the
option to download a Windows 10 image, and have the hardware scanned,
backup the data, guided help, install critical drivers etc, etc! Or I
could just download the image and install it manually.
Good stuff!

MissRiaElaine

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Apr 23, 2020, 1:27:57 PM4/23/20
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It only gives you the option to install whatever was on the machine when
it left the factory, we have three Latitude E6430's here and all we get
offered is Win7, which is a fat lot of use given we use Linux..!!

I have downloaded the latest firmware updates though, they're easy to
install as all you need is a USB stick with FreeDOS on it.
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