Dell Studio 14 Recovery Partition problem

ok i take you have a vista installation dvd if not get one is the easiest way now heres what you do take the vista installation dvd and insert it into the drive and boot from it then do as if you will if installing vista, (if you wanna use the full storage space of the drive or you are replacing or upgrading the drive transfer all the files of the DELL RECOVERY partition into a USB drive before you go any further; you can do the image restore from the USB at a later time) when you get to the driver selection screen delete the primary partition and any other partition you want to delete then create another partition and format, once thats done you should end up with a clean c:/ partition at this point you gonna cancel the installation and boot from the dvd again this time you gonna choose the repair option, then it will try to look for a vista intallation but wont find it so a screen should come out with different options like recover to an early state, memory diagnostic at this point you gonna choose tobring up dos command promt or CMD
once CMD its open exit to the c:/ drive by entering cd.. enter untill you are at the c:/ directory now your dell recovery partition should be D:/ drive or if you do a new drive install remember to replace the drive letter where the image is; so you gonna use a tool already included in the dell recovery partition called IMAGEX

now the ease part comes you gonna use this command
D:/Tools/imagex /apply d:\dell\image\Factory.wim 1 c:\
and thats it the imagex intallation should start and be done in about 10 minutes then try booting normal if you get a message that something is missing then boot from the dvd again and do the repair option again this time the dvd will repair the booting problem and thats it once is done reboot normal and you should end up with a fresh clean factory installation

you can do the same from a USB drive just put all the files from the recovery partition into a USB drive then save it and once you need it again you can do the same but this time using the USB drive letter instead

hey no problem i`m glad i was able to help you, let me know how it went and if you need any more help or advise