# Restoring Windows 8 to factory state, without deleting secondary partition



## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

*Hi ya'll.*

I have a 3-months old Dell laptop, which I need to do a factory reset for, using the recovery partition.
Since I don't have an external hdd available, in order to backup everything I needed (roughly 95 GB), I shrunk my C drive by 100 gig and created a secondary partition, and just moved my files there.

Now, if I remember correctly, unlike windows disc-installation, it won't let me choose which drive to format and install the new OS on, it'll just delete *everything *and restore it to the state it was in when I first got it.


*Since both drives are on the same HDD, will it actually be deleted? (the secondary drive).
If yes, what can I do to "tell it" not to touch that drive?*


_System:_


Inspiron 15 3537
I5-4200U
6GB DDR3
1TB 5400RPM
AMD RADEON(TM) HD 8670M 2GB DDR3


*Thanks!*


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Let's back up a minute. Your Recovery Partition is already a second partition. Did you create a 3rd and does it have a new drive letter?


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Hi - 

Usually, restoring a system to factory default settings will result in the HDD returning to its original state - just like the day you bought it and first booted it.

It is very likely that the restore will merge the partitions and you will end up losing your saved files.

I would suggest that you purchase an external USB stick or USB drive and back your files up to it.

If your backed up files are <15 GB, you may want to use Microsoft One Drive. They offer 15 GB cloud space for free -

https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`


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## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

Corday said:


> Let's back up a minute. Your Recovery Partition is already a second partition. Did you create a 3rd and does it have a new drive letter?


Yea, I shrank C by about a 100 gig, created a new drive with the unallocated space with the letter D, as a result of that (plus the fact I used EaseUS, which, according to many articles I read later, is a major cause in this problem), both recovery partitions went from "Recovery" type to "OEM partition" and I lost the ability to make any recoveries whatsoever, but I soon found a solution somewhere and with the help of DISKPART, I was able to change them back to Recovery. :grin:



jcgriff2 said:


> Hi -
> 
> Usually, restoring a system to factory default settings will result in the HDD returning to its original state - just like the day you bought it and first booted it.
> 
> ...


Yea I guess I can cut loose like 20-30 gig, but it will still be too much, plus uploading all of it to a cloud service would take forever... :sad:

So there's no way to factory restore my laptop while keeping files on the same HDD?


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

JCs idea of an external disc would be the safe bet and in the future you'll be glad you bought it. I hope your Recovery Partition actually works after what's been done. Just in case it doesn't, Dell will sell you a disc at a nominal price which I like to have around anyway, even though I actually backup my OS.


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## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

Hi just wanted to update I used windows reset and it worked like a charm  thanks


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## shawnpb (May 30, 2010)

93GB? You can not backup installed programs. All you need to back up is personal data like pictures, music, documents, videos, etc... All other things will have to be reinstalled over performing a Factory reinstall.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Builds said:


> Hi just wanted to update I used windows reset and it worked like a charm  thanks


Trying to figure out what you actually did, perhaps "System Restore"?


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## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

JackBauer_24 said:


> 93GB? You can not backup installed programs. All you need to back up is personal data like pictures, music, documents, videos, etc... All other things will have to be reinstalled over performing a Factory reinstall.


Yeah of course, that's 93gig of personal data  I just make a list of all the programs I have installed and reinstall after recovery



Corday said:


> Trying to figure out what you actually did, perhaps "System Restore"?


No, Windows Reset.
It's basically the same thing as performing a recovery from the Dell partition, except for one small difference which meant everything for me - if it detects there's more than one drive, it'll ask you whether you want to delete everything including the other drives, or if you want to delete just the drive where windows is installed.

It used the dell image for the restore so I basically restored it to its factory state, but kept the 100 gig backup drive


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