[Traediras]

I have fixed the problem thanks to a good friend from Scotland!

Thanks to everyone that's helped me out! I've got my original partition back, so I'm happy about that.


[strike]I was going about maintaining my Dell Studio 1555 laptop when I decided to reformat the recovery partition as I thought I didn't need it anymore, and for some stupid reason I unchecked the Quick Format box and all of a sudden all hell broke loose and now my hard drive is mostly buggered! I lost my OS (which was a good 287GB) partition but I still have the other partition that I formatted, which is only 10GB.

I have a 320GB internal HD (Western Digital) and I NEED to know HOW I can recover the lost disk space so that I can at least get it in working order, PLEASE![/strike]

[Hughv]

Why not just use your install disk to reinstall the OS?
Does the recovery partition still work?

[Traediras]

Originally Posted by Hughv

Why not just use your install disk to reinstall the OS?
Does the recovery partition still work?

One major problem: The OS partition is missing.

The recovery partition comes up but not the OS partition, and I don't know whether my OS would be able to fit on the recovery partition to start with as it's only 10GB large.

[dustyjay]

Was the OS you deleted the original factory installed OS?

[peck1234]

Your data unfortunately is most likely lost...

Do a complete format, then reinstall your OS...

And don't mess around with partitions! : P

[dustyjay]

Can you start the Factory Restoration by Ctrl+F11? If so it should restore the hard drive to the factory specs. Though anydata such as documents, pictures and such will be gone for good.

[peck1234]

If the recovery partition is still on your hardrive you can boot into its sequence by holding f8 when you first turn your computer on.


All your data will be lost... But youll have a nice fresh OS!!

[dustyjay]

THat is right some of the newer Dells use F8 instead of the old Ctrl+F11

[Traediras]

Originally Posted by dustyjay

Was the OS you deleted the original factory installed OS?

I had Windows 7 Release Candidate Build 7100 x64.

Originally Posted by peck1234

Your data unfortunately is most likely lost...

Do a complete format, then reinstall your OS...

And don't mess around with partitions! : P

Don't worry, I won't make the same mistake twice =P

Luckily I have a backup of my data along with a system image on my external HDD, however the current amount of space is far too small to reinstall the OS on (remember the recovery partition only has 10GB of space). Question though, how would I be able to reformat my HDD so that I can get the ~287GB hard disk space back along with the 10GB I already have?

Originally Posted by dustyjay

Can you start the Factory Restoration by Ctrl+F11? If so it should restore the hard drive to the factory specs. Though anydata such as documents, pictures and such will be gone for good.

I tried doing that on startup but I didn't get anything... am I doing something wrong?

Originally Posted by peck1234

If the recovery partition is still on your hardrive you can boot into its sequence by holding f8 when you first turn your computer on.


All your data will be lost... But youll have a nice fresh OS!!

Okay, so that would bring up the Advanced Boot Options. Where would I go next to be able to boot into the recovery partition?


Also, I may look into getting myself a new HDD if I can't fix this one.

[Hughv]

The recovery partition should install to the larger partition. I believe it will take care of the format and partitioning as well.
A reinstall of Win 7 will solve the problem also.

[peck1234]

1 Turn on the computer.

2 As the computer starts, press <F8> on the keyboard until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears on the screen.

Note:
You must press <F8> before the Windows logo appears on the screen. If you press <F8> after the Windows logo appears on the screen, the Advanced Boot Options menu will not appear on the screen. If you do not see the Advanced Boot Options menu, restart the computer, and then repeat this step until you see the menu on the screen.

3 Press the <Down Arrow> on the keyboard to select Repair Your Computer on the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then press <Enter>.

4 Specify the language settings that you want, and then click Next.

5 Log in as a user who has administrative credentials, and then click OK.

6 Click Dell Factory Image Restore.

7 In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.

8. Enjoy your brand new operating system! and update!

[Traediras]

Originally Posted by peck1234

1 Turn on the computer.

2 As the computer starts, press <F8> on the keyboard until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears on the screen.

Note:
You must press <F8> before the Windows logo appears on the screen. If you press <F8> after the Windows logo appears on the screen, the Advanced Boot Options menu will not appear on the screen. If you do not see the Advanced Boot Options menu, restart the computer, and then repeat this step until you see the menu on the screen.

3 Press the <Down Arrow> on the keyboard to select Repair Your Computer on the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then press <Enter>.

4 Specify the language settings that you want, and then click Next.

5 Log in as a user who has administrative credentials, and then click OK.

6 Click Dell Factory Image Restore.

7 In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.

8. Enjoy your brand new operating system! and update!

Okay, I tried the repair options that were available, and according to the diagnosis, the system volume on disk is corrupt.

[dustyjay]

What program did you image the disk with? If you restore the image it should make the drive exactly as it was when you made the image. You didn't mention that you had a disk image from before the error occured. That makes it easier and takes less time than the other options some of which seem unavailable now.

[dustyjay]

Restoring the Image will restore the partitions as well if you select that option, depending on the imaging software.

[Traediras]

Okay, I tried the repair options that were available, and according to the diagnosis, the system volume on disk is corrupt.

I didn't see you edit your post ^^; I currently have the Win7 RC installed. I don't get an option to login as an admin, let alone an image restore.

Okay, so here's the deal, I had a look at what I currently have and what was meant to be the C:\ drive isn't there (it's been replaced with the recovery partition) and there's nothing on the recovery partition. In addition, when I went into the System Recovery Options, it didn't identify an OS.