Operating System Built Into Partition?

Rip_Uk

Rip_Uk

Active Member
ok.. on a few of my friends computers they have the option to press F10/F11 or whatever to do a system restore and format windows, and install all the programs/drivers/settings that they had when they first bought the computer without using a CD. The question I have is how do I create this option, I would say using a partition of the hard drive but do I need to get a program or what do I need to do..?
 
Those partitions are nothing more than an image of your hard drive. The partition is bootable and extracts them from, say, a zip or tarball.
I've never heard of a program that does this, we would really just need a small Linux install and the tarball/zip of your disk, and a small install with tar or unzip installed.
And seriously, doing that isn't that hard...
Some command line skills are needed, but...
 
I have to assume from reading this that those systems were complete systems and not custom built by your friends. The restoration partition is created by the manufacturer to eiliminate the need to provide software disks along with the system when bought. EMachines is noted for having to contact their tech support where you then are provided a link for downloading iso type images to burn to disk in order to restore the system when a drive is wiped clean for whatever reason.

I ran into that one when a friend's son decided to install some downloaded pirated versions of Windows. The system won't run after it had been filled up leaving only 29mb of space left. The first partition on the drive was seen as drive H and wouldn't even load the bootleg pro version there. The second was seen as C and ran the pirate version of XP Home. I stated the drive needed a full wipe to restore the system back to factory after the disks were made up. Disk cloning programs are available for creating copies of an existing installation for copy onto a second drive. A pair of SATA drives in an array creates a mirror image of one to the other. Have a look at some cloning links.
http://www.mysharewares.com/padxml-acronis true image.html
http://www.drive-backup.com/?overture
http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
http://www.dubaron.com/diskimage/
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
 
so I would install windows, install the drivers and basic programs, clone the drive onto a DVD disk and that could be used to "restore factory settings" if needed, e.g having all the drivers and programs i installed previously. So If i created a small bootable partiton on the drive, call it say.. D: and make it around 5-10gb then how if needed do I get it to say "Press F10 to restore" and then when F10 is pressed it will start to format the C: partition and restore all the settings/drivers/programs. If this is possible it would be great help, as I cannot find a program that will do this for me.

The reason I want to do this is so If i build a computer and sell it, there won't be any problems with CD's etc. all the user will have to do if they run into some trouble is press F10 to "restore factory settings".
 
The factory tech creates a hidden recovery partition with programming for the restoration there. At this point without shipping it in for service you could clone the primary drive's image onto a second drive if not on a slightly larger then 5-10gb secondary. But you wouldn't be using the F10 key but rather a recovery feature included with the disk clone or backup software. You would perform a restoration by whatever that software calls for. If it says "CTRL-S" or "ALT-F5" for example only here you would follow those instructions.
 
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