Recently someone gave me their Dell Mini 1018 that didn’t work. It was Windows 7, so, according to Dell, the instructions to perform a Factory Restore were to tap F8 when the Dell logo appears and click Repair Computer (BTW Windows XP is Ctl-F11 after you first turn on the computer). This is great if the computer boots into the recovery partition, but if it doesn’t you’re almost out of luck. There could be 2 reasons why your computer might not boot into the recovery partition, one is that you erased the recovery partition, in which case I think you may have to order the recovery CDs from dell and get an external CD drive or put the CD’s onto a bootable USB stick. The other one is that for whatever reason the partition is there but the computer cannot boot to it.
NOTE: These instructions will completely wipe out your data. You should have someone who is familiar with installing and repairing operating systems. I take no responsibility for lost data or screwing up your computer any more than it already is. I assume if you are performing these steps you are unable to even boot your computer into Safe Mode. If you need to get your data (pics, music) off first, a good solution would be to boot from a Ubuntu Live CD, click Try Ubuntu, and then copy all your files to a USB stick. Or if you can boot into safe mode (it will give you the option if you keep hitting F8 after the dell logo disappears) you can get your files off with a USB stick, copying to a network folder, or maybe burning a disk I will try to create instructions on how to do this in the near future and put a link here.
One of the most important parts of this is to make sure that you have not wiped out your recovery partition. One way to figure out if you have the recovery partition is when you first go into the command prompt detailed in the instructions below, try typing in d: and then type in dir. it should say “Volume in drive D is RECOVERY” and display a couple of files. (if you want to see all files try dir /a)
You will need to boot into recovery mode in Windows, you can do this using a Windows CD or a bootable Windows 7 USB stick, and getting to a command prompt, by clicking on repair your computer, and going to recovery options.
I received these commands from the following site:
AGAIN THIS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING THAT”S CURRENTLY ON YOUR HARDDRIVE
- Boot into the Windows 7 Setup CD or USB stick by pressing F12 during the dell logo.
- After the CD loads choose your language, and then on the screen wher it says Install Now, on the bottom left there should be an option to “Repair Now” click this
- System Recovery Options now comes up and it will search for Windows Installations, when it’s finished make sure “use recoevery tools that can help fix problems…” is selected and click next
- You should now come up to a screen that has a bunch of selections, one of them being “command prompt” click this
- Now it should come up with a prompt that says X:\Sources. Type “diskpart”
X:>diskpart
- The prompt should change to DISKPART>, type “list disk”
- DISKPART>list disk
- You should then get something that looks like this:
DISK ### STATUS SIZE FREE DYN GPT
Disk 0 Online 232 GB 0 B
Disk 1 No Media 0 B 0 B
- Now you want to choose your disk. It will MOST LIKELY be the disk that is the largest, . In my case above it is “disk 0” at 232GB. Yours may be different, for instance if you have an external drive attached or 2 hard drives or a USB stick plugged in. Type the following at the DISKPART prompt replacing the disk that you have:
- DISKPART>select disk 0
It will say: Disk 0 is now the selected disk
- Now type “list partitions” to list the partitions on the selected disks
- DISKPART>list partitions
- You should get something that looks like this:
Partition ### Type Size Offset
Partition 1 OEM 100 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Primary 9 GB 101 GB
Partition 3 Primary 223 GB 9 GB
- If you look above, the obvious partition that stores all the files is Partition 3, because it is extremely large (223GB) Again Be careful, if you have an external hard drive plugged in it may show up here and you could wipe it out. I would suggest unplugging anything else beforehand just in case. Now type “select partition 3”
- DISKPART>select partition 3
- Now that you have selected the correct partition, you need to format it. This step will wipe out your data and can take a very long time. If you are not sure what you’re doing then type exit, if you want to continue then type “format”
- DISKPART>format
You are not done yet, all we did here was wipe out the data on your drive. Now that the data is wiped out, you need to apply the Dell Factory Restore image to the drive. Here are the instructions for this. I
- Type exit to leave the DISKPART> prompt Your new prompt should look like this
- X:\Sources>
- You will now want to switch to your Recovery partition, which will most likely be drive D:\. Type in the following 2 commands
- X:\Sources>d:
- D:\>dir
- You should see the following
Volume in drive D is RECOVERY
Volume Serial Number is 3ADB-70AC (this will vary)
04/18/2012 4:54 AM 4,106 ADRInfos.xml
12/25/2010 12:28 AM <DIR> Recovery
1 File(s) 4,106 bytes
1 Dir(s) 5,184,368,640 bytes free
If you see the “volume in Drive D is Recovery” then you are definitely in the right drive, if not you want to try to E: F: G: H: etc and then do a dir until you are on the recovery drive.
- This is the part where you apply the image. You will type the following:
- D:\>imagex /apply d:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 c:\
- The above command should apply the dell image to your C drive and restore your drive to factory defaults.
- After it’s done just type “Exit” to leave the command prompt and then click the restart button.
- There could be a problem here. We’re assuming that c: is the drive that you are installing this to (check this by switching to c:, and performing a dir, there should be no data on it because we wiped it out before.
- Another problem (and I ran to this problem on mine) is that there is no imagex program. You will get the error message: “ ‘imagex’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable prgram or batch file” In this case you will have to download the program “imagex” off of the internet (do a google search) and copy it to the D: drive. What you can do is copy it to a USB stick, plug it into the computer. Then figure out what directory the USB stick is named by trying the different letters E: F: G: H: I: J:, and doing a Dir to see if you see the file. If after a dir you see it then just type xcopy imagex.exe d:’, switch back to the D drive, and run the command in step A again. Mine happened to be located on drive H: but I also had an external CDROM plugged.
Another note is that I got the imagex program by downloading the file from Windows Automated Installation Toolkit If you need it for another OS just google it.
Yet Another Note: If you get an error 1812 (error restoring image, the specified image file did not contain a resource section), this may be due to dell splitting the image file into multiple files. If you read Brian M. post below on Nov. 20th 2012 it will explain more, but please be careful, his recovery drive was C: and the drive that he wanted to apply the img file to was D:. If your setup is like mine, and your recovery was d: and the drive to apply it to was c: you will want to reverse the c and the d in the command that he has provided.
I hope this works flawlessly for you. If you’re familiar with Windows commands it should be relatively simple, if not you may have your tech savvy friend perform the steps for you.
Vin's Mostly Admin Blog 
Jul 21, 2012 @ 23:32:03
The best, maaaan Thanks,
The have not finished yet, but anyway 🙂
Jul 31, 2012 @ 01:28:59
i have done the format for partition 3. Then i tried to apply the factory.wim into D:\
but don’t do anything and appears the message: “The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present”
I open C:\dell\image and there is the file “factory.wim”
What is the problem with the command:
C:\>imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 d:\
is the file WIM in hidden mode?
Jul 31, 2012 @ 11:18:27
Based on what your command looks like, your recovery partition is c: (which is where you copied the imagex program to) and the drive that you want to apply it to is d:? Is that correct?
the reason I ask is that on mine, my recovery partition was d:, the drive with all my data was c:. so I formatted all the data on the c: drive and then applied the image from the D drive. This may indeed be different on yours so do a dir c: /a and make sure that you volume name is Recovery. Also,change the directory “cd c:\dell\image” to that image directory and do a dir /a to make sure that the image does indeed exist. I just want to make sure that you are selecting the correct drives.
One thing I read on that error is that it may be a problem with the imagex program itself – its a long shot but if you determine that you’re selecting the correct drives then it is worth a try. If you can find another copy of it then maybe try that one as an alternative, just make sure you have the correct drive for recovery. let me know how you make out or if you have any questions. thanks. vin.
Aug 18, 2012 @ 21:51:28
Great writeup. But I have complicated matters further. I partitioned my drive and re-assigned the working space (not OS) as D drive. I had to mount the drive to another computer via USB to reassign drive letters and then download the imagex tool. All imagex.exe downloads are dead, I had to pull down a 1.7GB WAIK iso, mount that, install the x86 WAIK on my second computer and copy imagex.exe out of it. A ridiculous way to get a half mb file.
Then the install process and the image worked fine. Thanks for providing such a comprehensive guide.
Sep 05, 2012 @ 11:09:29
that’s pretty ridiculous that you had to do that. If the link doesn’t work you may be able to find it on a torrent site I would imagine. I guess downloading that WAIK guarantees that you get a legitimate file then. Glad it worked for you.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 23:21:12
Great instructions, much appreciated.
Oct 31, 2012 @ 15:24:11
Hi Vincent,
I am trying to factory reset my dell n4110 using your method. My hard disk came with 2 storage partition. Do you suggest merging both the partitions before applying the imagex command
Regards
Andy
Oct 31, 2012 @ 15:41:46
I’m not sure. Did you create those yourself or did dell create them for you? I would try to apply the image to the partition in which the OS was originally installed. If you get errors then combine the partitions and try again because maybe the image is larger than the partition ( i highly doubt that though)
Make sure you get all the data off before you do that. One way you can get the data off is to download the Ubuntu live CD and boot with the CD, and copy it off to a network location, burn a disk or put it on a flash drive. I don’t want you to lose any data so please take every precaution.
If you’re nervous about it then try posting to the site that I referenced the commands from (answers.micrsoft.com). People on there might have a lot more experience with the imagex program and applying the image to the partition. I have only had the opportunity to do this once so I am in no way an expert on the subject and don’t have another computer I could test this out on. Feel free to ask me any questions though and i’ll do my best to answer them. thanks.
Oct 31, 2012 @ 16:07:21
Thanks for the prompt response… The partitions came from dell itself. I only formatted the partition with the OS and the image restore process has started (showing 30% and 10 mins remaining). Lets hope that it gets fully completed successfully 🙂
Thanks
Nov 02, 2012 @ 16:03:09
So I’m curious did it end up working?
Nov 12, 2012 @ 17:43:53
Vincent, thanks for this great step-by-step tutorial. I followed every steep and my dell had the same directory configuration as yours (c: for main drive and d: for recovery) the imagex file was missed as well and I downloaded and copied it to the D drive, I also confirm that the Factory.wim file exists in the Image folder. Unfortunately I’m getting the same message as Benjamin “The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present”
Any Ideas on what I might be missing to make this work? maybe I need to move the imagex file inside the Image folder? Beforehand, tahnk you for your help. –Marco
Nov 19, 2012 @ 08:20:14
sorry for the late reply, did you try downloading it from the WAIK installation? If not try I would try that.
Mar 31, 2013 @ 20:17:16
You can also get a standalone imagex.exe from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2525084
It says it is a hotfix. If you download it you get a zip (it has a .zip.exe extension) that has a .cab inside, which in turn holds imagex.exe
You need to give an email for the download links.
Source:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/d4c05ee3-2838-4c02-bfa1-09e99c90f247/
ps: great article!! I was moving to SSD and wanted factory restore but to smaller partition than the original HDD one. The original MBR was long gone and I only had the Recovery partition available. Booted to miniXP (live) and gave the command in the terminal (with the multifile image update from Brian M.) and it started restoring the image with a progress indicator. It took about 10 minutes and it was succesfull!
Using a Dell Duo.
Apr 01, 2013 @ 08:33:01
great thanks. I never thought of using it moving from a big hard drive to a small one, that’s a good idea.
Nov 18, 2012 @ 22:53:58
Many many Thanks Vincent!!!
I installed windows 8 to give it a try and decided it was not for use with a laptop and no touchscreen. I then spent almost 2 days trying to get back my system back to factory settings. Luckily I had backed up all my data before installing windows 8. So all I needed was my system back.
After 2 days of trying quite a bit of options and getting frustrated alot, I found Vincent’s guide.
I followed it to the letter (even getting the missing imagex error as well!!!)
It worked superb!!
Am back with a laptop as good as when I bought it.
Cheers Vincent!!
Nov 18, 2012 @ 22:59:53
That’s great. I’m so glad it helped you out! Cheers!
Nov 20, 2012 @ 17:17:09
An added note, I kept getting an error 1812 (error restoring image, the specified image file did not contain a resource section). After looking deeper I found that Dell has the image split across several files (i.e. factory.wim, factory1.wim, etc.). I found the following command worked flawlessly:
C:\imagex /ref c:\dell\image\factory*.wim /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 d:\
Note the asterisk (*) in the /ref section. Hope this helps anyone else, took quite a while to find this corrected command for applying split images using imagex.
Brian
Nov 21, 2012 @ 09:29:52
thanks for the heads up. that should help someone out. I didn’t realize that they split them up on some models.
Nov 30, 2012 @ 16:03:21
In the above command you have c:\imagex /ref… command. Was your C: drive the recovery drive and the d: drive the drive you were going to apply the image to?
Nov 30, 2012 @ 16:10:47
Yes
Feb 10, 2017 @ 13:29:15
Vincent and Brian, many thanks. Your recommendations worked very well. The first imagex.exe didn’t work but the second one I found, combined the files and started the imaging. Best Regards.
Jan 22, 2013 @ 19:59:01
Hi,
I would like to say thanks you for this it’s great. I did all of the above step by step…format to imagex download to copy on recovery drive ect… (my recovery drive is d: and c: is the other drive).
this is the command I used : d: \imagex/apply d:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 c:\
I get this error : error opening file : [d:\dell\image\factory.wim]
the system cannot find the path specified.
So then I tried the other one in case it was also in section. c:\imagex /ref c:\dell\image\factory*.wim /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 d:\
I get this :
IMAGEX [Flags] / Operation [Parameter List]
whit option that I can choose to do next ???
As in : 1 append, dir, mount; 2 apply export mountrw; 3 capture, info, unmount; 4 delete, split ?
So im kinda of stuck at this point do not know what to do next, If anyone can help me out on this one I would appreciate it alot.
I might have not done this as well as I taught I guess 😦
Thank you
Jan 23, 2013 @ 08:29:20
Hi, Have you made sure that the “factory.wim” exists by navigating to the d:\dell\image directory and performing a dir /a? I don’t know that every Dell installation places it in that directory. I would first make sure that it exists and also make sure the permissions on that file/directory are ok. As for the 2nd command, the error usually would indicate that your syntax of that command was wrong, perhaps you mistyped something. I would also just for the heck of it try re-downloading the imagex from that from the Windows Automated Installation Toolkit and copy it there again. let me know how you make out.
Jan 24, 2013 @ 07:58:13
Hi, Vincent thanks for the reply. I am not sure if the factory.wim file is in the recovery partition I will check this out today and will let you know.
Thank you
Apr 08, 2013 @ 14:56:00
Excellent. Worked like a charm. The only issue I had was I received the “…subsystem..needed to support…not present” error message as detailed above. I downloaded a 64 bit version of imagex.exe from one of the links above and this resolved the issue. Many thanks for providing such a useful article.
Apr 21, 2013 @ 11:05:51
Thanks for a great writeup Vincent. Everything went smoothly, used Brian’s command. “Successfully applied image. Total elapsed time 12min 18sec.” Up & running!! KUDOS!!!
Apr 24, 2013 @ 13:32:38
Worked like a charm!
May 11, 2013 @ 14:22:43
Thank you Vincent, Brian and everyone. The problem I ran into was my file was winre.wim instead of factory.wim
Using Hirem’s Mini XP I was able to browse the folder and find the correct path. C:recovery\windowsre\winre.wim. Thanks again Sincerely, Wesley
Jun 15, 2013 @ 04:04:18
Ok everything was great and going as it was supose to until i rebooted in hopes my thumb drive would show but it didnt and now my recovery some how resides on C: so do i just reverse the above commands and replace the D with C? i dont wanna end up losin my recovery partition Im not trying to looks stupid just want to make sure so i dont screw up my recovery partition and i have to say It truly sucks that i cant make the disks i burned recover my system this is a pain in the tail but im trying my best to get it done Thank u In advance! 🙂
Jun 17, 2013 @ 08:21:03
yes that would be correct. just make sure that your d drive is the drive that contains your OS. do a dir d:\ and you should see folders like “users” and “program files” and “windows” that will tip you off that it’s the drive that you need to wipe out.
Aug 02, 2013 @ 20:50:28
Fantastic guide, looked everywhere for a solution to my problem, found it here.
Didn’t bother erasing data from the windows partition, 29% so far and all looks good!
Dec 05, 2013 @ 01:50:43
This is still very helpful 🙂 even the “RECOVERY” partition has been deleted or formatted.
I have done this on Dell Latitude E5420. I just copied the RECOVERY Dell Image (Factory.wim) from the other same model laptop.
Dec 14, 2013 @ 14:29:09
Thanks for the step by step, everything was fine ultil I type the command C:\>imagex /apply C:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 D:\ (in my case C is the Recovery partition and D is the partition I will use to install windows). When I typed this command I get this message ” imagex is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file “. What means that ? Hope you can help me. Greetings
Dec 14, 2013 @ 15:56:16
This is documented above, you have to download the Windows Automated installation toolkit, then copy the imagex file to recovery partition, in your case you would copy this to C via a usb drive or something else. Also read the comments as well but i’m pretty sure it should solve your problem.
Dec 17, 2013 @ 07:24:19
I am also getting same error 1812. But I am using hire cd, gimagex GUI. Can u help me on this. My wim file is split into 3. I need to know how to mount.
I am afraid if I copy imagex.exe into recovery drive it might be corrupted and I can never use it. So I am using hiren boot cd , mini Xp option.pls pls, I am stuck for days
Dec 17, 2013 @ 22:17:11
I’m sorry but I am not familiar with the hire cd, or gimagex gui. If you read the comment by Brian on Nov 20, 2012 @ 17:17:09 above he explains how to run the imagex command when the image is split into multiple files. i would recommend using the method described above but i’m not sure i undersand what kind of corruption you’re referring to.
Jan 20, 2014 @ 05:35:52
Hi Vincent, I found your instructions very helpful an easy to follow although I came across some problems. Long story short – I got my laptop after previous owner, I tried to factory reset it the standard way but after the hdd has been wiped out I got a message that the new image cannot be applied. I decided to try your way and everything went fine until I tried to apply factory.wim file. I got an error ‘The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present’. I’m not sure what that means.. Is it possible the factory.wim file is damaged? I tried command with * in case there were multiple flies but with the same result (if that has anything to do with it..) Any ideas or my last resort is ordering recovery cd from Dell..? Thank you.
Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:09:19
Hi kate, if you read all of the comments above and search for “subsystem” on this webpage most people solved this problem by downloading a different version of the imagex program. You may have been using the 32bit version on a 64bit system, or vice-versa, or maybe the one that is currently on your system is corrupt and needs to be replaced. i would try that. let me know how you make out. thanks.
Feb 13, 2014 @ 13:43:03
Thank you so much man! It worked perfectly. Still a pain to get your hands on an Imagex but still, it worked perfectly!
Cheers :).
Apr 10, 2014 @ 23:34:29
Thank you. Worked perfectly on a customers computer.
Apr 18, 2014 @ 07:43:42
Thanks Brian M.
I have been looking for the split image command answer for a few days now.
Now I will finally try to recover the system. F8 is non-functional. The people who don’t make and save recovery CD’s make this type of project very challenging.
Respecfully
Walt Koz
Apr 20, 2014 @ 21:33:38
Thank you all, you just saved my night.
Cheers,
Marc
Jun 19, 2014 @ 16:57:34
Great writeup.. and Brian helped out on mine. The newer dells does have the WIM split across 3 different files. Great stuff.. thanks again!
Jul 20, 2014 @ 00:59:43
muchos gracias Brian.
Oct 05, 2014 @ 08:02:11
Oct 06, 2014 @ 01:21:17
great tutorial thanks.
the only issue I had was that when logging on to my recovery drive in cmd window was the \Dell\image directories were hidden. I finally used Paragon HD manager 14 boot disk then used file transfer utility and copied Factory.wim to root of recovery drive. rebooted with repair disk, went to command window, ran imagex.exe (which I had copied to root beforehand) and in less than 30 min rebooted to Win7 as it was day one.
(INSPIRON 2305)
Fix Wim Error 1812 Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 [Solved]
Dec 03, 2014 @ 12:00:07
Apr 10, 2015 @ 01:36:15
I know it’s in relation to an old post, but many thanks to Brian M & Vincent in relation to the split image issue – came in handy in a pinch.
Théoden's Coding Tips » Blog Archive » Dell factory restore when F8 does not work
May 11, 2015 @ 10:06:57
Aug 05, 2015 @ 01:55:25
Man you simply are the shit. Especially the part where it says
4. There could be a problem here. We’re assuming that c: is the drive that you are installing this to (check this by switching to c:, and performing a dir, there should be no data on it because we wiped it out before.
Another problem (and I ran to this problem on mine) is that there is no imagex program. You will get the error message: “ ‘imagex’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable prgram or batch file” In this case you will have to download the program “imagex” off of the internet (do a google search) and copy it to the D: drive. What you can do is copy it to a USB stick, plug it into the computer. Then figure out what directory the USB stick is named by trying the different letters E: F: G: H: I: J:, and doing a Dir to see if you see the file. If after a dir you see it then just type xcopy imagex.exe d:’, switch back to the D drive, and run the command in step A again. Mine happened to be located on drive H: but I also had an external CDROM plugged.
i followed to a tee and it was right on. Saved me from a lot of unnecessary steps of reinstalling a fresh copy of windows7. Much Thanks. I dont have much but I’ll donate to knowledge of this kind
Jan 06, 2016 @ 21:40:09
Hello! My name is Antwan Craney and I live in Bremen,IN. I have read your blog post about Factory Restore From The Dell Recovery Partition When The Repair Option Does Not Work | Vin’s Mostly Admin Blog and I want to say that I am quite impressed with your professionalism on the subject!
Jul 07, 2016 @ 07:20:40
Thanks for your help, it worked for me.
Mar 06, 2017 @ 23:42:18
Thank you, this worked for me.
I used an ISO containing imagex from this post (it’s named “winpe_x86.iso”): http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19465109/20179296#20179296
After this, I got a “BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart” message. To fix this, I ran: bcdboot c:\windows /s c: