BleepingComputer.com: Dell Recovery Partition

Hi.

I recently had to reformat my PC because of some mistake.
I just realized that I am missing my RECOVERY partition.

I have just reinstalled my drivers and Media Direct.

But is there anyway I can get that partition back.

I am on an Dell Inspiron 1525 and Windows Vista Home Premium 34bit.

Thanks

EDIT: Oh forgot one thing, I bought my laptop at Best Buy and upon reinstalling Dell Support Center it no longer has anything about Geek Squad or such.
Not really necessary but I would like my laptop's default stuff back.
Also in the Welcome Center there are nothing from Dell when there once was.

1) What let's you know that you don't have a recovery partition? Have you checked in diskmgmt.msc for it?
2) Dell's usually come with some DVD's to restore the OS. Do you have those? If so, what are they labeled?

1)In Computer, there used to be two disks labeled, RECOVERY and OS.
2)They are Driver CDs, MediaDirect CDs, Windows Vista 32 bit reinstall, Roxio cd, and a Webcam Manager CD.

Oh and going through my last post, I don't have Vista 34bit, I have 32 bit.

Have a look at this article: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/glo...toggle=&dl=

It seems that you've gotta install the OS and then, in some way, invoke the recovery wizard to reconstruct your recovery partition.

This link seems to indicate a bit about how the recovery partition works: http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/

The only suggestion that I've found on the web to restore the partition involved sending the computer to Dell. I'd suggest a program like Acronis True Image ($50 US) - it'll make a secure recovery partition on your hard drive once you've installed Windows and all of it's drivers.

How does Acronis work?

It creates the partition but then how does it restore it?

With Acronis, you'll make a Secure Recovery partition. You'll also make a boot CD that will be able to access the partition to restore your system. If you need to restore, you boot from the CD and restore the image that's stored on the Secure partition.

Alternatively, you can store the image elsewhere (such as on a removable hard disk) and use that to restore the partition. Just FYI - I had difficulty with this on my old Toshiba laptop and had to use the Secure Recovery partition because of it.

Is it okay if I just use my Install CD?
And install the drivers from Dell's CD?

Or is there a difference between the partition Dell preinstalled and the Install CD?

No difference, it's just easier with a recovery partition.