Dell Inspiron 545s recovery partition access?

[Niclo Iste]

I originally thought this system didn't have the recovery partition but when I put in a DVD to install win7 it showed the hidden partition. My question is HOW IN THE HECK DO I ACCESS IT!? I just need to run the recovery partition and it won't respond to ctrl+f11, ctrl+f10, f10, f11, ctrl+shift+f10.

[Niclo Iste]

Hmm I stumbled on the answer when I went to a link for recovery of a different series laptop with xp out of blind hope. Anyway here is the answer for anyone who is in this same dilema http://support.dell.com/support/topi...t?docid=362066

[Ferrit]

Not sure if this will help but its where I allways go
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...tructions.html

[Matridom]

Access to the recovery partition is based on what OS is installed. Windows XP it is accessed by taping ctrl-f11 during the boot process, the place to look for is where there is a blue bar across the top of the screen that says www.dell.com. If at any time the MBR has been re-writing, accessing the recovery partition then becomes almost impossible. I've seen 2 options for accessing it, one is through a guy by the name of Goodell's he has some comprehensive info and some tools to try and re-access it. If it's a laptop, one choice is to re-install Media Direct.

Vista/7, the utility is accessed through WinRE, either by pressing F8 during the boot or booting to the DELL branded OS disk, you will see an option there for "Dell PC Restore" - Not to be confused with system restore.

Finaly, if you can see the files on the partition, you can use Ghost to re-image the hard drive as PC Restore uses it.