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Hi,
I wasn’t really sure when I setup my NC10 how the backup utility worked. I started digging into it and tried to use Partition Magic to look at the partitions. That didn’t work and I see others have had the same issue. What I want to do is restore the laptop back to factory defaults including resetting all the partitions.
Will the full restore CD do this? From reading the restore help it appears that it will only reimage C. However does it give you the chance to do the backup again? I want to skip that and then back up to the recovery partition after I have my base install set up.
Thanks for any help.
Curt
I got a response from Samsung today that the NC10 cannot be put back the way it came from the factory.
My main goal was to be able to put my own image on the recovery partition rather than the one it created when I first booted the machine.
I may start a thread just on that.
Curt
I have been trying to do the same but without much success. What I want to do is to be able to put my own images to the hidden recovery partition after having installed some necessary software and made personal customizations to my XP setup and later if something goes wrong, to be able to get back to my saved state by just pressing F4.
My findings so far are:
The “Samsung Recovery Area” is a primary hidden partition with the type ID of 0x12, the label of RECOVERY, and I *think* the file system should be NTFS.
This partition was at the beginning of the HDD when out of the box, but I think it doesn’t seem to have any physical requirements to where in the HDD it should reside or how big it can get as far as Samsung Recovery Manager software is concerned. In fact, I once moved it to the end of my HDD after having resized to 10GB and Samsung Recover Manager III still recognized it.
But then, I think I broke something in the way special code in the MBR finds the hidden image by moving it to the end of my HDD. When I tried to recover after having relocated the recovery partition to the end of my HDD, the system just hung up after having rebooted. I think it was because the special code in MBR didn’t find the recovery image where it expected. So I think there is something in the original Samsung MBR that I surely don’t understand.
Once I have overwritten the MBR, I couldn’t even get the Samsung Recovery Manger installed. And there seems to be no straightforward way of creating a new image to the recovery area from Samsung Recovery Solution either. I have temporarily given up the idea and have removed the recovery partition for the time being.
It would be very nice if I could perform what I now do with Acronis True Image with Samsung Recovery Solution alone. I will definitely keep my eyes on your thread!
[quote1231522503=eugene]
The “Samsung Recovery Area” is a primary hidden partition with the type ID of 0x12, the label of RECOVERY, and I *think* the file system should be NTFS.
[/quote1231522503]The recovery partition is of type 0x12, but the filesystem is 0x07 (NTFS). Basically, when you boot of the partition, the software does a remap of the partition type. 0x12 is a old Compaq diagnostics partition (now used generally) that windows ignores. So, it can be the first partition, but it is skipped my Windows for consideration as “the first drive” where it needs to be installed. This partition type also prevents windows from even accessing it, as it doesn’t know what the real file system is. Ubuntu and Linux can see around this and still let you mount it.
How to (re)create an EISA partition the MS way
Thanks for the info. I did find a lot of that yesterday in my investigations but it’s nice to get some more clarification.
It doesn’t appear I’m going to be able to do what I wanted to do with that partition and use Samsung’s recovery utility. I wanted to put a new backup image there and replace the one that is there. Samsung says you can’t and after looking at all the files I’m not sure I can figure it out. I would have to replace the image and edit some files that have stats in them that I’m not sure I can get. Also I would have to back it up with their utility which I might be able to do going to DVD now that I think about it. Regardless it would be hard to do unless someone knows a shortcut.
I really like the ability to hit F4 at boot and go to the restore partition. Could I use the F5 functionality to tell it to boot that partition so that I could run ghost or another script to backup and/or restore an image of C? Has anyone tried this or know how the F4 hook works?
Thanks,
CurtAs far as I can tell hitting F4 replicates booting to the grub4dos command prompt (hit C at boot) and typing in chainloader +1 followed by boot
My plan is to format the recovery partition, make it bootable with DOS probably, then load up ghost on it so I can recovery or backup to that partition. Then I’ll mark the partition as Type 12 again.
I’m hoping that hitting F4 on boot will boot that partition as I’m hoping that hitting F4 simply tells the bios to boot partition one.
Is it that easy? I’m guessing I’m not even close but maybe someone has more info on this somewhere.
Thanks for any help. I appreciate the feedback. I haven’t had time to try this yet so I’m collecting info until I do.
Curt
someone needs to ghost the drive on a new NC10 that hasn’t been turned on and put that on bittorrent….. shouldn’t be too large. Then we could get a copy and restore that.
[quote1231625062=traveltrousers]
someone needs to ghost the drive on a new NC10 that hasn’t been turned on and put that on bittorrent….. shouldn’t be too large. Then we could get a copy and restore that.
[/quote1231625062]That would be great but I’m not sure it will fly with the copy of Windows on it because of licensing issues.
Curt
Agreed, someone made this request before and any links to uploaded OS installs will be removed. I suggest you take up any restore issues with Samsung support. Soz.
How about the MBR? Would uploading the MBR (or the first 446 bytes of the MBR) violate any rules?
I have nuked my HDD so I cannot check it myself anymore but I would like to know what was there in the original MBR as came out of the box in order to help me figure out how to put back the recovery partition and make F4 work again.
Can someone who has not removed the recovery partition and has not overwritten the MBR make his/her MBR available somewhere?
I read here in the forum that Samsung has installed Grub4Dos. Where exactly is it installed? Is it installed in the MBR? Do you see “gldr” and “menu.lst” somehere?
I just got my new nc10, not yet turned it on. I don’t know how to ghost the drive without turning it on. I have acronic true image 10 on my desktop here, including install disc. Can I make an original image using that, before turning sammy on?
rocks,
I think you can, especially if you have acronis true image.
Boot your NC10 off an external CD Drive and run acronis true image or you could create a bootable USB flash drive and boot if off from the USB drive and run your acronis true image.
That should give you access to the original partitions as NC comes out of factory.
Can you also make a back up of your MBR as well? In fact, twice, one before turning on your NC10 from the hard disk and after your NC10 has made the initial recovery image?
Cheers,
Eugene
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