Recovery Partition - potentially bad MBR

Hello,
I have a c55-A5104 and a c55-A5281(bought 6 months later) and I am trying trying to factory reset to restory windows 8 operating system on both.
I hold down 'zero' and when the menu comes up I choose to continue but on both machines I recieve an error 0c0000225. I have even tried doing it in windows and I get a "a problem occurred while resetting your pc" From research I have discovered that this might be a master boot record issue. Both machines have 1GB healthy recovery partitions along with the 100MB ECFI and regular large partition with 8 GB unpartitioned at end of disk (checked with disk manager).
I have not done anything wierd with the computers like installing linux, so I am guessing this might be a common problem because they are practically out of box, perhaps windows updates have messed with the recovery partition? Is there a way to fix the MBR on diskvolume1? I don't know if it has a different MBR on the recovery then regular windows so I am worried about using bootrec.exe.
Suggestions? Please Help!
Eric

Satellite C55-A5104 (PSCJEU-00K00R) - downloads here - comes with Windows 8.1
Satellite C55-A5281 (PSCF6U-01Y00C) - downloads here - comes with Windows 8.0
For both computers, see the section Reset your PC, which begins on p. 59 of the User's Guide (which applies to both).
Satellite/Satellite Pro C40/C50/C70 - A Series User’s Guide
If the second one really does restore to Windows 8, upgrade it following these instructions.
How to Update from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1
-Jerry

Similar Messages

Restoring Vista's MBR so F11 actually loads the recovery partition?

Hey guys, I have a Pavilion m8277c that came out of the factory with Vista 32-bit. I know from experience that by dual booting and installing another OS, either with another version of Windows (newer or older) or Linux, overwriting the MBR will cause F11 to not work in loading the recovery partition at startup (in fact, in the past I tried a Windows 7 beta and when I decided to wipe my hard drive clean some time after that, I had to use the recovery disks that I thankfully made before doing this experiment, as my recovery partition was nonfunctional). Right now I have a triple boot of Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Ubuntu Linux, with Linux's bootloader (GRUB) occupying the MBR, which could load any of the three OS's.
Now, I decided to get rid of Linux altogether and wipe my hard drive clean again (I keep all my files on an external hard drive and I don't have much software to reinstall, plus I like keeping my system as lightweight as possible). I know that I can't use the recovery partition again this time, but I was wondering, that since from now on, I'm only going to be booting a Windows OS that's older than the factory preinstalled one, I can use Vista's bootloader to select between Vista and XP. I know that since Vista was preinstalled and so the recovery disks install it first, XP has to be installed afterwards. XP's bootloader will occupy the MBR and will not recognize Vista and also will cut off the link to the recovery partition again. I've heard of this program called EasyBCD that has been updated to support XP and restore Vista's boot record (source) so I believe I could actually restore Vista's MBR without having to use the recovery disks to fix them.
I just want to know that if I were to restore Vista's bootloader by running EasyBCD, would that also fix the link to the recovery partition so that when I press F11 on bootup, the recovery partition would load? Or would I have to run my recovery disks to restore a custom MBR, or is it not possible at all to restore the recovery partition's functionality after a second OS has been installed after Vista? I could try it out since I believe my recovery disks are still functional, but I don't have much time right now for troubleshooting, so it would be better if someone else has already confirmed that it works and I could go ahead without issue.
Thanks!
(by the way, I know that Microsoft doesn't like it if we make more than one copy of a recovery disk, since they can install Windows on a blank HDD on any computer, but will copying a recovery DVD with a DVD burner allow the new set to work? I've had my old set for a while and I fear that they'll fail soon. Maybe there's a way to hack HP's recovery disk creation program so that we could make a second set?)

Making a copy of your Recovery Disks is a good idea.I have done it myself and can verify they work. I have also used EasyBCD on a dual boot machine and found it quite easy.However I don't know whether F11 for Recovery is restored.I tend to doubt it,since F11 is looking for partition 2 of 2 partitions to boot from and there are 3. It would be an interesting experiment-let me know if you try it.
Another option that usually works is using Disk Management to mark the recovery partition as active>>
1.Right-click on "Computer" icon and select manage.
2.This will launch the Microsoft Management Console.
3.On the left side of the MMC, click on "Disk Management" and it will show you all of the partitions.
4.Right-click on the "HP Recovery" partition and select "Mark as Active Partition."
5.When the warning prompt appears, select "Yes" - Reboot and it will automatically boot into the Recovery Manager (without pressing F11).
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Can't access windows or dv6t-3000 recovery partition after unix boot menu removal.

I have a dv6t-3000 laptop running Win 7 Home premium 64 bit; my son had put a unix partition on it. Since I tried to bypass the unix boot menu using MBR (the idea of my brother, the IT professional) the laptop just gives a unix error message at startup (error: no such partition. grub rescue> _) If I hit escape while starting up I get the startup menu including F11 System Recovery but Fn+F11 (it's a laptop) does nothing and hitting the F11 key itself just sends me back to the Unix error message.
Shamefully I never made a set of recovery discs; how can I boot into Recovery? Would the Recovery USB flash disk utility work, or screw things up further? Any help would be appreciated!

Sadly, I must recommend that you purchase a recovery disc set.
Playing around with Linux ( probably ReiserFS) and MBR does bad things to the Windows boot sector. One option is to reinstall GRUB. The second option is If your brother can find a Windows 7 64-bit repair disc for you, then you may be able to repair the boot sector. That should make the original Windows 7 installation useable again. Otherwise you will need the recovery disk set to restore all functionality, including the recovery partition and the F11 recovery manager access.
Sorry to bear bad news.
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How can I repair my OS X Boot Disk without a Recovery Partition (Using Disk Utility)

Hey there,
I recently found that my OS X boot partition is corrupt (using DU's "Verify Disk" function). I would like to repair it using Disk Utility, but that would require me to boot from the Recovery Partition, which is a problem...
I have Ubuntu installed on a separate partition on my internal hard drive (using a Hybrid GPT - MBR Setup). Because of this, the Mountain Lion Installer wasn't able to install the Recovery Partition.
What is the best way to get Disk Utility to repair the disk in this situation. I know that I could boot another OS X install from an external hard drive and use that to repair the disk. This is a bad option for me because I don't really have a spare external hard drive that I could use (or partition)... Other than that, I'm clueless
Thanks in advance

Unless you install Mountain Lion properly you'll not have a Recovery HD partition. Your options are to install Mountain Lion on another drive from which to boot the computer should you need to use Disk Utility. Or you can try this:
Boot into single-user mode. After startup is completed you will be in command line mode and should see a prompt with a cursor positioned after it. At the prompt enter the following then press RETURN:
/sbin/fsck -fy
If you receive a message that says "***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****" then re-run the command until you receive a message that says "** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK." If you re-run the command more than seven times and do not get the OK message, then the drive cannot be repaired this way. If you were successful then enter:
reboot
and press RETURN to restart the computer.

HDD recovery partition to other storage media

Hi,
I own a Toshiba laptop model A665-S6094 with 640GB hdd model MK6465GSX.
Recently, my OS was not started anymore and I suspected that there are some problems with my hdd.
In fact I was true, there are several bad blocks, I was very disappointed with that, the 640GB hdd has only 1y and 5m, just enough to be out of warranty.
I tried to revitalize the hdd with hdd regenerator or even zero byte fills program but with no luck. The bad sectors are still there.
Before I managed to backup my data and also to save the hidden recovery partition, created an iso image from it. I also saved the MBR, just in case. But I do not have any recovery media.
Now I plan to flush the recovery partition content on a USB stick and to boot from USB device with a brand new hdd. Will this be working?
If I plan to boot with recovery DVD disks, how I should write the recovery partition on recovery media and how should I split the zzimages folder?
Are there any differences between the recovery partition and the recovery media disks? After all Toshiba Recovery Disc Creator is using the recovery partition to create recovery media, right?
Greetings,
Laurentiu

All you have to do is make sure the USB stick is formatted NTFS or FAT32 and "active". Then just copy the contents from the root of the recovery partition to the root of the USB stick. Double-check the file "DATA.INI" and make sure that "CDNUM=1" and "CDMAX=1", but if it came from the HDD recovery partition, they should already be correct. Go and and test boot.
Rick...

Can't recover from recovery partition with OneKey after disastrous Win 8.1 upgrade

I have a U410 that is only a couple months old. A few days ago I decided to take the plunge and accept the free upgrade to Windows 8.1.
Big mistake.
SInce the upgrade, I've had a slew of problems ranging from programs not running to hard disk integrity checks every time I restart the computer. I've already refreshed the computer (wiping all programs), with no luck. Now I'd like to restore from the recovery partition. However, when I press the onekey button I get the same behavior described here, and can't boot to system recovery mode.
Based on some of the posts in this thread, I gather that any change in the partition sizes pretty much breaks the onekey software, but that sometimes restoring the factory partition sizes can cause it to work again. I haven't knowingly made any changes to the partition sizes, yet looking at disk management I am seeing more partitions than I would have expected (not sure if they were there before the upgrade since I've never looked before). I would like to know if there's any way I can regain access to the recovery partition--and if not, what my best bet is for undoing the damage the 8.1 upgrade did to my OS.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Dang, that's dissapointing. I did see it mentioned elsewhere that recovery discs are only $16 though. I had thought they'd be $100+ or something, so that aint so bad. I'll get on that.
Thanks for your time

How can I undo Converting Recovery Partition to Logical Drive (Oops...) - HP G62-b32sa???

I needed to create a new partition, but to do that Easeus Partition Master 9.00 Home Edition (I like using this compared to the Windows one..) stated that I needed to convert one of the 4 pre-made partitions from Primary to Logical. The following partitions were pre-made with my laptop, HP G62-b32SA, all of which were Primary:
*: SYSTEM
C:
D: RECOVERY
*: HP_TOOLS
I could only convert the "D: Recovery" to Logical, so I went ahead, and then could create a new partition. But now after reading several post on this Forum, I realised what a mistake that was. I found that that converting the Recovery partition to Logical renders it useless... "Oops" I said. Now I wonder that if I convert the Recovery partition back to Primary, will I be able to use it again, or has the damage been done? But then the other problem is that it won't allow me to convert the Recovery Partition back to Primary, claiming "there are no free MBR slots". Also, I have a feeling that I'll have to delete my newly created partition to convert the Recovery partition back to Primary, but then how do I create a new partition without converting any of the existing to Logical? Endless questions, I know. So now I ask, what is the best thing to do??
BTW this is my first HP Laptop...
This question was solved.
View Solution.

How to handle this situation, back up your personal data and use the HP Recovery Discs to restore the PC
Make your recovery discs now, use good quality DVD+R media
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c01867124
Once you are back to normal partitions, see this thread on how to make another partition without damaging the other 4
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Notebook-PC-questions/How-to-repartition-HDD-of-HP-notebook-with-...

USB disk with Lion recovery partition + storage partition shared by Mac & Windows: Windows can't read it.

I have a Lexar Express Card flash drive (16GB). It works the same as any USB flash drive.
I use it to move files between Mac OS and Windows 7/Bootcamp: Drag files to it in one OS, reboot in the other OS, take the files back off.
Recently, I discovered the Lion Recvoery Disk Assistant, which allows you to create a Lion Recovery Disk on an external drive (just in case). So, I decided I would use a ~1GB partition on the express card for the recovery disk, and leave a ~15GB partition for the same file sharing I am used to.
This setup requires that the disk use a GUID Partition Map with a HFS+ file system for the recovery partition, and I use a FAT32 file system for the shared partition. The partitioning was done in Mac OS Disk Utility, and then I think the Recovery Disk Assistant modifies it further by adding an EFI partition.
When I try to access the disk in Windows 7, it says it needs to format the drive first (which it shows to be a ~200MB "volume" on a disk with ~15.4GB "capacity"). From what I have been able to find on my own, Windows 7 should be fine with a disk using a GUID Partition Map, and both OSs can use a FAT32 file system. So why does Windows only see the 200MB EFI partition at the first section of the disk, and not the other partitions, particularly the FAT32 file sharing partition?
The last thing I will mention is that the disk is being seen by Windows as a MBR/Master Boot Record partitioned device. I'm assuming this is the GPT/GUID Partition Table's protective partition's fault; the one MBR partition that keeps the GPT partitioning safe from software that doesn't recognize or know about GPT.
I'm asking on the Apple discussions because it's in Boot Camp and I'm primarily a Mac user. If anyone knows a better, Windows-focused place to ask, please say so!

You really need to search first as there are A LOT of post's with the same question. Different issues with different Models.
What model/year do you have and what OS were you using first? Snow Leopard (10.6) is the last one that came with a CD/DVD with the computer.
You insert the disk when it's done installing W7 and reboots into Windows then you insert the 10.6 MacOS Installer disk for the Windows drivers. Lion does it a different way.
PR7 wrote:
...........because I lost the OS X Lion install disk that came with my Mac)..........
Lion (10.7) is only a download now, there are no more physical disk's, (unless you pay the extra money for the USB installer thumb drive directly from Apple). So if your computer came with 10.7 Lion installed then you will not have a physical disk. There should be a "Repair Partition" that you use to boot to if you need to repair or to reinstall the Lion OS.
PR7 wrote:
However, when I log on my Windows account and I insert the bootable OS X Lion install disk, Windows doesn't read it. I can't even find the disk in Windows Explorer or even Right Click on the disk.
Please Help!
Thank You!!!
I don't believe the Boot Camps drivers are in the Lion download anymore, ( to keep the download smaller?), the only way you get them now is when you start BCAssistant, it will prompt you to download them onto a CD, or USB drive. You have to download and install the Boot Camp drivers separately. You then insert it when it's done, when Windows boots.

Need help restoring dell factory image from hidden recovery partition

Hello All.
My Dell XPS M1530 Model PP28L Service Tag <ADMIN NOTE: Service tag removed per privacy policy> Windows Vista Home 32 bit crashed the other day. Windows Vista would not load either in normal or safe mode. It kept going into a endless loop. Tried F8 and repair no go. Then hooked this drive as a slave on another system and ran chkdsk.exe which deleted several attribute records. The drive now boots into Vista normal and safemode fine.
I would now like to troubleshoot how to run the factory restore using Dell restore feature.
I've tried Ctrl-F11 but no menu comes at POST. I've also tried the F8 during the POST and after selecting Repair My Computer the laptop continues right into Windows Vista and no System Recovery Option displays. Can I run the Dell factory restore from the hidden recovery image partition ? If YES then what software do I need in order to this ? Thanks
As a slave hooked to a Windows 7 computer I cannot see the hidden recovery partition in Disk Management. Same when the drive is booted into Vista safemode.
How can I restore Vista to Dell factory settings from the hidden recovery partition ? Please see the picture of the disk management snapshot which I have taken when booted into Vista.
Thanks
Victor

Windows Vista is obsolete (no Office 2013, IE10/11 or drivers for new hardware support and no Digital Distribution).
I'd advise installing a SSD in the system and installing Windows 10 Insider 10074 which is a relatively stable build. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users are eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 RTM. Windows Vista users aren't eligible for the free upgrade but theres likely going to be a free upgrade from Windows 10 Insider to Windows 10 RTM or at least a significant discount.
Use 64 Bit and note this is a MBR Legacy BIOS (non-UEFI):
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-microsoft-windows-and-office/download-microsoft-windows/download-windows-10-technical-preview-iso/
The drivers should all be installed automatically, if not use these:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/driver-sets/xps-laptops/xps-m1530-windows-7-64-bit/

Cannot resize system partition due to recovery partition

Hello.
I have a 500GB HD (momentus XT) that replaced my default 320GB HD.
i cannot resize the system partition due to the recovery partition. System keeps on telling me that "map is too small".
Tried diskutil under osx, under lion bootable recovery usb stick, under diskutil through console.
Here is what diskutil tells me.
~ > diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            319.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
~ > diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s2 400G
Started partitioning on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
Verifying the disk
Checking file system
Performing live verification
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
Checking catalog file
Checking multi-linked files
Checking extended attributes file
Checking volume bitmap
Checking volume information
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK
Resizing
Error: -5341: MediaKit reports partition (map) too small
I want to resize the partition to use the remaining new space i have, of course, and create a bootcamp part.
I am wondering if i can kill the recovery partition without destroying my lion. As i have the recovery transfered successfully to usb stick using the apple utility, i am able to use it anytime.
But... just wondering if that would crash my OS or not.
Or, if anyone sees a way to move the recovery partition to end of the HD so that i can enlarge successfully...

Thanks to you both, luckily there's only 600GB on that drive at the moment.
I was wondering, though, why won't it let me make it bigger?
I already had a 1TB partition in the space below it. The screenshot shows me having already deleted it - but still no option to resize the other (larger) 2TB one.
If there is a reason why I can't resize now, then I can take that advice and try and make sure it doesn't happen when I reformat it again.
I would understand if the partition were MBR, but it's not, it's a GUID Partition Table (bottom right), so I'm confused - what is it's problem? ;-)

Exist recovery partition but won't access to reset laptop to factory seting

Dear all,
I am using Toshiba satellite L855-S5186, and bad luck, I erased disk by toshiba tool. I inserted windows 8 DVD to check partition, and result is : windows 8 partition lost but Recovery partition still exist and full data, OMG, lucky. And then, I restart and press F12 to display boot menu but I cannot find Recovery HDD.
1. Please help me clone Recovery data to Recovery USB and I will boot from USB, or better, Can you help me the way to boot from recovery partition.
2. Can I use recovery USB of other Toshiba satellite L855-S5186 to recovery my computer.
My model: Toshiba satellite L855-S5186
OS: windows 8 professional x64
Thank you for your help.
Regard,
Thanh Truong.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I think that you have to have Win 8 bootable to get into the recovery program. I believe that if you can find an exactly identical computer you can make recovery media on it or you can buy it from Toshiba.
L875D-S7232 (Win 8.1)

HT4718 New iMac (March 2013) has no recovery partition ?

Hallo,
i contacted Apple support because of a problem with an external USB 3.0 hdd after sleep mode. In some cases the external hdd will not be recognized
after sleep mode by Mac OS 10.8.5. For checking something the Apple engineer said i should reboot by holding the Alt key.
After reboot the engineer was astonished that my new iMac has no recovery partition. The iMac starts a recovery by internet connection but if i understood him correctly a brand new iMac must contain a recovery partition.
What can be the reason that a newly bought iMac does not have a recovery partition ? I contacted my dealer (German online store) but I did not get an answer until now. My newly bought MacBook Air has a recovery partition.
Please excuse my bad English.
Greetings Jan

This article explains the missing recovery partition problem for new fusion drive Mac computer:
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/02/13/finding-steves-recovery-partition-solving-an-appl e-mystery/

How do I get the Recovery partition onto a DVD set from my solid state drive?

My Pavilion dv6 has only a solid state drive. I need to recover and reuse the 23 gb currently partitioned for recovery. To do this I need to move the recovery files off the drive. Can this be done? Where do i find instructions on how to do it?
Thanks,
Bill Wright

txi wrote: My Pavilion dv6 has only a solid state drive. I need to recover and reuse the 23 gb currently partitioned for recovery. To do this I need to move the recovery files off the drive. Can this be done? Where do i find instructions on how to do it? Thanks, Bill Wright
Hello txi, Your best bet would be to use a hard drive image program and perform a complete hard drive image.
If you have Windows 7 on the SSD this would include the System partition, the C: partition and the D: Recovery partition.
The D: Recovery requires some data from the Master Boot Record (MBR) in order to be accessed.
Just trying to copy the data from the Recovery partition would not be successful if you wanted to use this data later.
By making a hard drive imgae of the entire hard drive, and saving this image on an external hard drive, or a large enough USB drive, you could then delete the D: partition and expand the C: partition to recover the D: partition capacity.
Then if you need to revert back as the system was when the hard drive image was created, the D: partition would be put back on the SSD.
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Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem.

Recovery partition with no recovery

Hello,
My customer's laptop (Compaq Presario CQ58 - hopefully it's good place to ask that question) had some issues with hard drive, so I replace it with bigger one. I've cloned all partition trying to save 3 other sizes (Compaq specific ones: first, probably Windows-installator-100MB, third - recovery and fourth-some-software) exact, so only C partition has been expanded. Because it was at-customer-home fix, I haven't done it exactly by sectors position, but simply by size given in cloning software input fields. Software used - WD's edition of Acronis True Image.
So drive has been cloned and starts fine. Recovery option during bootsrap (F10 tapping) is available and loaded HP menu is present, but recovery option there is inactive. Like some file or sector pointer is missing. Standard Windows recovery points are available only.
Question is - how to recreate proper *whole drive recovery* option to that system ?
I've done additional sector-by-sector backup of those 3 partitions from old drive, so I think if I restore them by brute force now - recovery should work fine then (if MBR has not been treated by HP some strange way). But is there another option ? I don't know recovery partition general-format, so it's why I'm asking the source
Thank you for any clues.

The simplest method is to use the usb recovery media to perform a factory image recovery to the new hard disk.
The factory image recovery executed from recovery media will create all required partitions, including a fresh recovery partition, and enable the HP recovery manager to operate as expected from within Windows or from an F11 keystroke on powering up.
Copy all important data, documents , photos and videos to external storage before you begin. The factory image recovery will delet all partitions that are currently on the hard disk.
Of course, the unfortunate downside is that you will have to reinstall the programs and utilities that you have already installed to the new drive.
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How Can I Restore My formated Recovery partition ( D:\ ) ?

Hello
First, I'm Sorry For My Poor English.
I have HP Pavilion 2020ev Laptop
But i have a SUPER BIG PROBLEM
I got a Real bad virus about 4 week ago And That Virus Format My "D" (recovery Partition ) and "F" (1TB External Hard Drive) .
I lost My Rocovery Drive And Now I Have To Restore My Windows Without DVD/CD .
Is there any solution to take back my recovery drive ?

You're in a tough spots here. The hidden partition is wiped out and you lost your DVD's. I would call tech support and see your options about being able to have the recovery disks shipped to you or worst case scenarion, that may not be too costly to purchase.

Recovery Partition - potentiall​y bad MBR

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Recovery Partition - potentially bad MBR