Reflashing hard drive to .wim image (with a linux dualboot installed)

**iPwntUrMum** · February 05, 2011, 06:05 PM

Hi all. Long time no see. I've been having quite a few problems lately. (sorry for the long title

)

So here's the problem. I currently have both Ubuntu Linux (10.04 if it matters), and Windows Vista installed on my hard drive, and I'm using GRUB (i think) to switch between both at start up. Only problem is, Vista is totally dead. I accidentally uninstalled the Drivers folder under system32 and all this stuff, so it's just brain dead. I can't even boot. So I just want to get rid of it.

I don't have a windows vista install disk to use to reinstall vista. This computer is a fixed up Dell computer, so vista just came preinstalled. I do have a Dell Recovery Partition, and it doesn't seem to be broken or corrupt at all.

Now. I've read elsewhere that you can hit control and F11 to activate that Dell Recovery program, to reflash my hard drive with the factory image. But, that doesn't work with the dual boot set up that I have now. When I push ctrl+f11 both at bios loading and after selecting Vista and at Vista's loading, nothing happens.

So. TL;DR. I have a ~5.5 gb .wim file (which is apparently a disk image) that I have access to, and I also have the Dell Recovery Partition that, I believe, just loads that image back onto the hard drive.

How can I reflash my hard drive using that image, without using any Windows Vista in-OS programs?

I think I read that I could burn that to a disk somehow, and boot from it...? Maybe? No?

Any help would be hugely appreciated, as currently I have hundreds of dollars of software inaccessible to me.

**PoleCat** · February 05, 2011, 09:03 PM

I haven't played with .wim files yet but by the looks of it's entry on Wiki it looks like you can make it bootable from disc. It seems to me that it just uses the current partition so there shouldn't be any problem as long as that .wim file is an image of your partition from before (but I could be wrong - maybe it doesn't matter). Looks like you'll need to make a bootable disc with that image on it and use the command lines tools to write the image to the disc.

I'll say up front I've never done this before but if you need it I'll try to walk you through the rough patches. Good luck!

**iPwntUrMum** · February 06, 2011, 04:38 PM

Hm. Okay. One question. The .wim image is around 5.5 gigs... how is that going to fit onto a cd-r?

Also, I'm confused on what you mean by using the command line tools to write the image to a disk. Do you mean booting Windows in safe mode with command prompt?

**PoleCat** · February 06, 2011, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

Hm. Okay. One question. The .wim image is around 5.5 gigs... how is that going to fit onto a cd-r?

Also, I'm confused on what you mean by using the command line tools to write the image to a disk. Do you mean booting Windows in safe mode with command prompt?

Do you have the option to boot from a flash drive?

And yes - Safe Mode with command prompt.

**iPwntUrMum** · February 06, 2011, 05:51 PM

I do, through my bios, IIRC. Not that I have a flash drive big enough... But I could probably get one.

Good deal. Not 100% sure how to do that, and ive never really worked with command prompt.

**PoleCat** · February 06, 2011, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

I do, through my bios, IIRC. Not that I have a flash drive big enough... But I could probably get one.

Good deal. Not 100% sure how to do that, and ive never really worked with command prompt.

ImageX Command Line Options. Essentially what you'll be doing is using the MS toolset to mount the .wim you have to that partition. I'm not entirely sure if you should reformat that partition beforehand or not.

I haven't used it myself and need to do a bit more research before I could give you a detailed instruction list. If you need it I'll have to get back to you later. You can do some research on the topic yourself though. Good luck!

**iPwntUrMum** · February 07, 2011, 07:43 PM

Are those command line options only for 7/Server 2008?

I might just try and get an iso of the installation disk somewhere.

About mounting that image. You mean "reflashing" (my word lol) my C: partition to factory settings? Or would I be "reflashing" my whole hard drive back to factory settings? considering that the state of my hard drive at factory was the big C: (os) partition and then this 20gb recovery partition, and then since then I added a linux partition..

**PoleCat** · February 08, 2011, 12:52 AM

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

Are those command line options only for 7/Server 2008?

I tried to search explicitly for the Win7 commands. If you need something else then please tell me or do a search of your own.

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

About mounting that image. You mean "reflashing" (my word lol) my C: partition to factory settings? Or would I be "reflashing" my whole hard drive back to factory settings? considering that the state of my hard drive at factory was the big C: (os) partition and then this 20gb recovery partition, and then since then I added a linux partition..

It depends on when that image file was created. Did you create it yourself or did you download something of off the net?

If this works like I think it should (from prior experience with Norton Ghost) then you should of had the option to choose what partition or volume to make an image of. If you made the image to cover the entire disk then it will overwrite the Linux partition. If you were more discerning when you made the image and you selected only the Win7 partition then that is all it should overwrite. As we can't know what you've got there in that .wim file it really is up to you to decide. Again it really depends on when you made the image, if you made the image yourself, and where in the process you installed the Linux partition. I'm hoping that someone with more recent knowledge on the subject will jump in here but there seems to be a lack at the moment....

Care to shed any light here? Good luck!

**iPwntUrMum** · February 08, 2011, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by PoleCat

I tried to search explicitly for the Win7 commands. If you need something else then please tell me or do a search of your own.

I'm (sorta, heh) running Vista Home Premium. I thought I had that in my OP.

Originally Posted by PoleCat

It depends on when that image file was created. Did you create it yourself or did you download something of off the net?

The image was created by Dell at the factory, as this was originally a stock computer. So I'm assuming it would be a full hard drive image.

Originally Posted by PoleCat

I'm hoping that someone with more recent knowledge on the subject will jump in here but there seems to be a lack at the moment....

Me too

Thanks for your continued help man.

**PoleCat** · February 08, 2011, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

I'm (sorta, heh) running Vista Home Premium. I thought I had that in my OP.

The image was created by Dell at the factory, as this was originally a stock computer. So I'm assuming it would be a full hard drive image.

Me too

Thanks for your continued help man.

Crap. Reading comprehension failure on my part - I'll find you the Vista instructions as they are different it seems.

If that image is the Dell stock then it will overwrite the Linux partition if you use ImageX as far as I can tell - no help there. That would probably explain why the Dell Recovery isn't working - it's not set up to recognize user changes to a volume.

Are you sure you don't have a restore point on that Vista partition you can revert to in Safe Mode? Can you even access Safe Mode? Just how comprehensive a screw-job did you do to the \system32 folder?

**iPwntUrMum** · February 08, 2011, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by PoleCat

Crap. Reading comprehension failure on my part - I'll find you the Vista instructions as they are different it seems.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by PoleCat

If that image is the Dell stock then it will overwrite the Linux partition if you use ImageX as far as I can tell - no help there. That would probably explain why the Dell Recovery isn't working - it's not set up to recognize user changes to a volume.

Are you sure you don't have a restore point on that Vista partition you can revert to in Safe Mode? Can you even access Safe Mode? Just how comprehensive a screw-job did you do to the \system32 folder?

Well, I used to be able to boot into safe mode, before I deleted (yes, totally cleared it out) my Drivers folder under /system32. Now when I boot it gives me some weird Select User thing where I type my username and password. Never works, always says domain cannot be reached or something.

And yes, I'm sure that I can't just restore to a restore point, as whatever malware messed my computer originally cleared out/corrupted my restore points.

**PoleCat** · February 08, 2011, 11:48 PM

That's what I was afraid of. Hmm....

irishron has more experience than I do with Dell so it may pay out to ask for his help there. He may know of a way around the Recovery option that I don't. Don't put him on the spot - you've screwed yourself pretty hard there.

With no install disc and no way to purchase a license then your option is the .wim file again. But this will probably mean a re-format just to be sure. Backup what you can off of the Linux partition and write off anything on the Vista partition - it's gone. I hope you have backups...

After a good re-formatting then you can mount that image you've saved and that should theoretically restore the system to factory stock. Do you think you can manage this or will you need instructions? Good luck!

EDIT: And who told you Windows would reinstall all drivers on reboot? If you delete the entire folder you're causing all kinds of trouble. Maybe I'm showing my age but I've never heard such piss poor advice....

**irishron** · February 09, 2011, 11:01 AM

The easiest way now, being Dell, HP for two, is to move your wole Linux to your new exteernal drive, repartition and reformat if for no more than get rid of anything bad in the root, hten recovery disc, then repartion and move your Linux back.

Long, slow, and painful.

**iPwntUrMum** · February 09, 2011, 05:47 PM

The Linux partition was a sort of messing-around thing, and wasn't meant to become my primary OS. So it doesn't necessarily need to be reinstalled. Irish, I still don't have a recovery disk.

So basically, backup my vista docs and move them to an external source, and then format the hard drive, and then either mount the .wim image or get an installation disk for Vista, correct?

How can I format the whole drive? Wouldn't I be doing that from my Linux partition, which means I wouldn't be able to wipe it fully..? Like, I can't wipe it if I'm using it, correct?

Pole, I read it in an online forum. I'm a newb, it's okay. We learn through mistakes, right?

Thanks to you both.

**PoleCat** · February 09, 2011, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by iPwntUrMum

The Linux partition was a sort of messing-around thing, and wasn't meant to become my primary OS. So it doesn't necessarily need to be reinstalled. Irish, I still don't have a recovery disk.

So basically, backup my vista docs and move them to an external source, and then format the hard drive, and then either mount the .wim image or get an installation disk for Vista, correct?

How can I format the whole drive? Wouldn't I be doing that from my Linux partition, which means I wouldn't be able to wipe it fully..? Like, I can't wipe it if I'm using it, correct?...

You definitely have some problems as you don't have a disc to work from. I have no experience with Linux so I can't tell you if you can use it to format into an NTFS format for Windows. My guess is no, you can't use Linux to format the drive for Windows (but I could be wrong - hopefully someone with Linux skills will answer that question soon).

I'm torn between telling you to find a copy of "fdisk" and format the whole drive or to tell you to look into data recovery software off of Cnet. Theoretically you could recover the files you deleted from \system32 - it is a long-shot though....

I've found a site that details how to make a Vista Boot disc - I just don't trust it though. A quick search on the MS site didn't detail a way to download the boot disc except for XP. You don't have access to ImageX software as far as I can tell as you have no disc to work from. That means we'll have to cobble something together to make this work.

With all that said here's some of the research I did on the subject:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5558482_crea...isk-vista.html (questionable)
http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-format-a-hard-drive

If you manage to find a copy of fdisk - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

Lastly - http://www.ehow.com/how_2052284_make...boot-disk.html (if you choose this route you'd only need the disc for it's support of older DOS programs - especially fdisk. I'm not entirely sure the Vista boot disc still supports the older DOS programs....).

To be sure this a piss-poor solution but if you can't afford a new Windows license then this may be your only way. Hopefully someone will come along and prove me wrong. Good luck!

**irishron** · February 09, 2011, 07:17 PM

I was hoping the format part was some place on the image so you could use it after mounting it. The file resides in ram during the process along with enough other files to install Vista, again..

**iPwntUrMum** · February 09, 2011, 07:20 PM

It could be, but I really don't know, since Dell would have their own program (Norton Ghost I think PoleCat found?) that would mount it

god I really just want a new hard drive and windows 7. would be so much easier

**irishron** · February 09, 2011, 09:58 PM

I don't know how much they charge but there are people who do disc recovery for a living. There was one advertizing a few miles from my housr in his store window.