Inside the Dell PC Restore Partition

Does Dsrfix Really Work?

Read comments from some of the people who have used Dsrfix:

Scotland, Jan '09: "Having just used your Dell restore facility, I am very grateful to you for a working system!"

Denmark, Jan '09: "I just wanted to thank You for the great advise on Dell PC Restore and the DSRFIX. It saved me a lot of time and agony [on my Inspiron 1300]."

(unspecified), Jan '09: "My customer managed to "reformat computer" and install dodgy copy of winxp on top. But using your guide (and dsrfix cd image) I quickly restored dell partitions to original state. AND, of course, the laptop is now back up and running original legal winxp and all the supplied apps. THANKS FOR YOUR JOB!"

California, Dec '08: "Thanks for making DSRFIX available. I used it to recover an Inspiron 9300 for my brother in law."

Michigan, Dec '08: "You, sir, are a genius. Your dsrfix did the trick [on my Dimension 5100]. Worked like a charm. Thank you."

Canada, Dec '08: "A friend had inherited an Inspiron 6400, and wanted it "pristine." I was going crazy trying to reload XP and all the drivers, and a lot wasn't working, including the wireless. Then I read on the Dell site about Ctrl-F11 Restore. But it didn't work! (Guess I clobbered the MBR with my previous installation.) Then I found your site and dsrfix. Worked exactly as advertised, and solved a day and a half of frustration with 15 minutes of automatic copying. Many thanks!"

New York, Nov '08: "Thanks to your excellent web pages and utilities, I was able to restore a friend's Inspiron 6000. The effort was a great learning experience, and my friend is very happy to have a working machine again. You are a fantastic resource, and Dell should recognize your efforts."

Georgia, Nov '08: "I just found your site while attempting to fix an Inspiron 9400 for a friend of mine. I found the recovery partition and it was not accessible. (of course) After following a few steps I had a usb drive with a dos boot setup and dsrfix onboard. It only took two simple commands and I was ready to go with the restore. Thanks!"

Virginia, Oct '08: "Thank you for your work on Dsrfix and tools. I am a self-employed software developer/contractor [working on] a recovery of a completely destroyed WinXP installation [with] no reinstall cds. Once I realized why the Ctrl-F11 was not working, I was only able to resolve it without much hassle because I came accross your tool. I have now successfully restored the factory install."

Massachusetts, Oct '08: "Thanks for the great utility. Saved my butt. Could not get Windows to install cleanly on the Dell 3100 even when formatting the C: drive and starting from scratch. Kept getting blue screen crashes. The recovery partition was still there but I couldn't get to until I found your utility on the web."

Illinois, Oct '08: "Just wanted to say thank you for writing the DSRFIX utility and putting such great instructions on the web. This is exactly what I needed to restore a friend's PC."

New York, Sep '08: "I fixed my computer after reading your article a couple times, to make sure I didn't screw up anything, thanks to your wonderful dsrfix program!!!! thanks for making that wonderful program, you are the man!"

Virginia, Sep '08: "Thanks very, very much for the thorough writeup of Dell's restore process. My Ctrl-F11 was defunct and your utility will save me the painful rebuild by CD process. My restore process now functions as it should."

Scotland, Sep '08: "Many thanks for your DSRFIX. I have a Dell Dimension 8400 on which I had to re-install Windows XP due to several deteriorating software issues, and eventually the BSOD. It did work and function but it was not back to original efficiency. During my search for cures to the various problems I came across the Dell System Restore function, which I thought would be the answer to my problems, but of course by now it did not function. I then discovered your site with the magic DSRFIX solution. It worked a treat, allowing me to get everything back to full working efficiency once more."

(unspecified), Sep '08: "I used your tool [on my Inspiron 6000] and it works!!! I have to thank you so much!!!! you a genus!!!!"

Virginia, Sep '08: "Wow!! I thought I could recover a friends defunct Dell laptop with his re-installation CD. I soon discovered that it simply installed a raw Windows XP OS. Nice but not the desired result. Didn't know about the magic of Ctrl-F11, otherwise I would have used it from the beginning. Good thing I discovered the magic of your DSRFix utility!! Saved my bacon!!"

(unspecified), Sep '08: "Just wanted to say I used your tool, and it worked great. There is a lot of crap on the internet, and it is refreshing to find someone who offers something that they put together in the interest of helping others. Just wanted to say thank you!"

England, Sep '08: "Just a quick email to thank you for your comprehensive article on Dell's system restore and its foibles. After trawling the net for some time, I came across your article, and it was just what I needed. I don't usually send off emails like this, but I felt compelled to in this case because of the quality of your information, which led to a successful resolution of my problem."

(unspecified), Aug '08: "Just wanted to drop a note to say THANK YOU for the dsrfix program and comprehensive site. It works great and you saved me a huge headache of dealing with Dell or finding a Windows install disk elsewhere."

New York, Aug '08: "Thanks a ton for developing this app!!! My father-in-law dropped off his dead in the water Dell Inspiron e1505 at my house last night and asked me to reload it. Of course, no recovery CD's and the Ctrl-F11 recovery process dead-ended into a BSOD. I fought with it for hours and was beating my head against a wall. I finally found your website, downloaded dsrfix and 10 minutes later Ghost was reloading the image. Great app."

California, Jul '08: "Dsrfix is amazing... It worked really well [on my Inspiron 6000]. Thanks a ton for it."

Washington DC, Jul '08: "I am beside myself with gratitude. DSRFix worked like a charm on my RAID1 volumes and I now have a restored factory version computer. I owe you bigtime - perhaps my firstborn in lifetime bondage."

(unspecified), Jul '08: "dsrfix on a dell [XPS 400] with factory raid mirrors. Worked like a charm and saved my rear end. Thank you."

Connecticut, Jul '08: "Thanks very much for writing this utility and documenting it so well.....fantastic work. I tried a base install from the XP CD but dsrfix allowed me to save tons of time I would have wasted on the drivers and included applications......again, great work!"

England, May '08: "I just want to say a big thank you for the above program. After suffering a massive crash and the BSoD on my [Dimension 3100C], I had to restore everything using a Window`s Home Edition recovery disk. When I got everything back up and running, I found my Dell Symantic Restore was absent at boot-up. Thanks to your program, I`ve now "recovered" it and everything is now back to normal."

Massachusetts, May '08: "Your dsrfix utility has saved another Inspiron 9300 from the hands of a would be Windows XP re-install. Glad I found your site before I finished. Wish I'd found it before I started. Thanks. :)"

England, Apr '08: "I have been using DELL's laptops for 10 years now and have avidly consumed your excellent articles on the above subject, using the content successfully, so a very large thank you for rescuing the system on my Inspiron 9300."

California, Apr '08: "Although it may not work for every situation, Dsrfix certainly saved me! My main Dell system was taken down by a virus attack (caused by me, in one of my less brilliant moments) and the Dell restore partition was damaged--I thought, for good. Then I discovered Dan's application. After following his comprehensive documentation, I had my system restored in under an hour. Dell should be paying Dan every time he helps someone fix this significant problem, one which they have yet to address. Dan and his program are the best, and I recommend them wholeheartedly!"

France, Apr '08: "I have just used your dsrfix tool to rewrite my MBR : a recent windows xp installation did erase it, as I thought, and I couldn't get the ctrl+f11 back anymore. After finding no solution by DELL services (they could only answer 're format and re install), I have been searching the web for your solution because I knew it was possible ! and you made it possible !! I thank you so much !!"

Pennsylvania, Mar '08: "That was incredible! Thanks for making that available - I am a dangerous novice (that is how I broke the Restore function in the first place!) and you made that positively easy to restore the Dell functionality. I got an education "to boot", as it were... I actually used the PC Restore last night and it went without a hitch..."

New York, Mar '08: "Great job with the DSRfix. I was on the phone w/Dell for 39 minutes with a lot of "please hold on sir". During one of these holds I did a search and found and read your info. I told Dell to forget it, I found my cure. It was simple and work flawlessly."

Wisconsin, Mar '08: "Just wanted to write and express my appreciate for your Dell recovery tool. I was at my wits end and the Dell website was completely useless in terms of diagnosing my problem. But, your tool fix it in about 30 seconds."

Texas, Feb '08: "I just wanted to thank you for your awesome utility tool!! I reformatted my Inspiron E-1405 only to later find out that access to the DELL Restore utility was gone. I saw the partition was still there but I didn't know how to access it. Anyway, your program worked great and restored my system in seconds (I only got two alerts). Now I restored my laptop and is back to original condition. Thanks a bunch!!!"

Canada, Jan '08: "I thank you many thanks for the awesome instructions and programs you have provided on restoring the Dell PC Restore functionality. One of [our company's] laptops became corrupt and I though my Ctl+F11 functionality was gone for good. A few tweaks using dsrfix made it all better again. THANKS!"

Missouri, Jan '08: "Just wanted to say thank you for your restore utility. It worked fantastically (<---is that a word?). Was working on a computer for a friend of a friend of a friend sort of thing, and didn't have restore disks handy. I knew the restore partition was there, but couldn't get to it. Your handy little tool fixed that right up."

(unspecified), Jan '08: "I wanted to thank you for making such a program as DSRFIX. Worked like a charm [on my Inspiron 9300]. Thanks!"

England, Jan '08: "I've come across your dsrfix article while looking to repair a friends Dell Inspiron 1300 which had suffered a severe virus attack. I've run dsrfix and a couple of 'alerts' were repaired. All's well now and the OS has restored fine - all thanks to your great little program. Many many thanks for providing it."

(unspecified), Dec '07: "I'm a tech support/consultant. I use a inspiron 6400. had a virus related issue which caused me to reformat. Just ran [dsrfix]. WORKED LIKE A CHARM. Thank you so much for you support."

(unspecified), Dec '07: "Superb!!! It really works. I was unable to restore my [Inspiron 6000] but after using your software i was able to. Thanks a lot."

Denmark, Dec '07: "My daughter has a Dell Inspiron 6000, and suddenly we were in need for a repair of the c:\ drive... And thankfully I found your homepage! The Dsrfix was very needed to solve our problem."

Virginia, Dec '07: "Googled your solution for system restore. Just what I needed [for my Dimenison 9200] when I needed it. Dell folks were regrettably clueless. God is good and you are smart."

New York, Dec '07: "I stumbled upon your DSR/MBR fix website while seeking a fix for my Dell PC Restore. I had established that the partition was intact and looking for something just like what you have created. I followed your instructions, and the dsrfix /f worked just fine and within half an hour my [XPS 410] was back in commission."

Missouri, Dec '07: "Your dsrfix software is well done. Just used it on a couple dells I have (XPS 720 and Dimension 8200). Works great."

(unspecified), Dec '07: "Thank you for your DSRFIX tool!!! It worked like a charm on my clients Inspiron E1405 laptop. I was doing a virus removal when all of the sudden on a reboot I received "Error loading operating system." I then did a fixmbr and fixboot which which made everything worse. I created a bootable CD with the DSRFIX.iso and ran it from there. The only alert I had was that the mbr did not match. Ran the fix, checked report again and all was good. Rebooted and ctrl+F11 worked and restored the system. Thanks again for putting this tool out there saved a lot of headache!!!!!"

Indiana, Dec '07: "Thank you for sharing the Dell dsrfix. It worked perfectly for me. I thought that the machine I was working on was trashed. Through a few, well explained, processes I was able to restore [my Dimension B110] to like new condition."

Washington, Oct '07: "Thanks!! DSRFIX saved my butt. Previously loaded 2nd windows OS on XPS M140, aparently lost MBR code in process. Booted w/ DSRFIX.iso CD you provided. Diagnosed and fixed with /F."

New York, Oct '07: "Thanks for posting your Dell System Restore article! Son's Inspiron 6000 HD was on the way out, and using the information and your program in your article I was able to transfer both the Utilities and Restore Partitions to the new drive [and was] back in business in a few hours, back to day one, including the copy of MS Office 2003 that it came with it."

Scotland, Oct '07: "Your advice on booting my Dell Inspiron using the Ctrl+F11 method saved me from chucking the machine in the garbage after getting non-stop blue screen errors. Up here in the Scottish Highlands, there's not much hope for networking to solve computer problems, so when I found your site and the process worked, I jumped for joy! Thanks for putting your expertise on the Web for all to share."

England, Sep '07: "Thanks for [Dsrfix]. Installed the Vista upgrade on my XPS M1210 did not like it, but could not go back. A lovely utility."

California, Aug '07: "I found your instructions for accessing the hidden dell partition and the disk image and using it to restore a client's computer. The OS was toasted and wouldn't boot and Ctrl+F11 would not work. I looked and looked on the internet and finally found your article. Your information was dead on accurate, easy to understand and to implement. It worked like a charm. It saved my client from having to buy XP and then pay me to restore it all from scratch. So I say thanks making my job easier and shorter and for taking the time to make your work available to the public. You did an outstanding job."

Spain, Aug '07: "I love you, you made my day. After 3 days of crazyness I finally restored my computer. Your dsrfix tool worked for my Inspiron 640m. Thanks again."

Pennsylvania, Aug '07: "My daughter's Dell Dimension 4600i computer was giving her problems. We were unaware of the Ctrl+F11 restore option, so we did a clean install of Windows XP from the Windows XP CD that came with the computer. This left us with just Windows XP and none of the other apps that originally came with the computer. Then we found out about Ctrl+F11, and realized that our actions had probably disabled it. Your DSRFIX fixed the problem. Now she's back in business as if the computer was brand new."

California, Aug '07: "Thanks so much for your excellent utility. You are a true humanitarian for offering this tool that so many people obviously need, and the manufacturer doesn't provide. I have an Inspiron 6000. I'd installed Windows XP from an XP disk I'd received from Dell, and then realized that I'd have to install all the drivers separately. I then decided to go back to the factory defaults on the separate partition, which of course, was no longer accessible with the ctrl-f11. I then saw the link to your site, thank goodness. I'm up and running today. Thanks again. Excellent work!"

England, Aug '07: "Many thanks for the advice and software provided on your website RE: DSR partition. Thanks to your provision I have been able to fully restore my [Dimension 3100] and all is back up and running."

New York, Aug '07: "i had my dell shipped with windowsXP, then i upgraded to vista. when i wanted to use the DSR i realized that i can't. well i just took the risk (had nothing to loose), and let dsrfix do its thing. and i am happy to tell you that it worked. Thank you so much! you are a great knowledge base for that and a such a professional one!"

New Jersey, Aug '07: "I just used DSRfix [on my Inspiron E510] and it worked like a champ!! All I can say is..YOU DA MAN!"

Germany, Jul '07: "Your dsrfix-tool is very great and it was very helpfully for me and my laptop. You made a great work. Thanks."

Illinois, Jul '07: "Dude! I used your utility [on my Inspiron 6000] and I am amazingly impressed by it. It really does work and I love what your work has done for me. Dell is amazingly stupid and have no idea how to help their own products. You are my new Guru... lol. I just wanted to say thank you sooooooooo much for they help you and your tool has provided to me."

England, Jun '07: "Thank you for the DSRFix! You are a prince among men for this program. I recently 'upgraded' my Dell Dimension 9100 to Vista and it was a mess. Nightmare. I was terrified to run the DSRFix as I am a little DOS afraid but I followed your instructions to a T and access to the partition was restored! The Dell is returning itself to the factory state as I type this."

Australia, Jun '07: "Thank you for your dsrfix tool and instructions. Recently, I installed Fedora 7 on my Dell Inspiron 6400. Sure enough, things change and I need to sell the laptop, which means I need to restore it to factory condition, which means I need the original Dell MBR, which means... whoops. So, thanks for having the exact tool I needed to counteract my ignorance. I might have well been crying into my coffee this morning if I hadn't stumbled across your webpage."

Florida, Jun '07: "Your DSRFIX worked like a charm on my E510. I had spent many hours trying to repair my system, and your program fixed it in minutes. Thank-you!"

England, Jun '07: I have Dell Dimensions 5150 [with] Windows XP media center installed on it by Dell. I recently had to manually reinstall the windows due to a boot problem. But after reinstalling the windows manually I was shocked to see that I could not start the [DSR] utility. I then found your web site which is excellent on this topic. [After using Dsrfix] my DSR utility is now working fine."

Canada, Jun '07: "I installed knoppix 5.0.1 onto my external USB drive (or that's what I thought)...now the boot partition is modified and I always have to have the external USB connected to be able to boot into my Windows XP. [I wanted to eliminate linux and return my Inspiron E1505 to] Windows set up with previously installed software intact. Dsrfix worked like a charm, as easy as 123. What a lifesaver...thank you again."

Netherlands, Jun '07: "Thanks a lot for the DSRFIX. It restored Dell utility perfectly. My Dimension 9150 came with XP. I then upgraded to Vista and now reverted back to XP."

England, May '07: "Thank you for making your Dsrfix utility available online. After spending a great deal of time yesterday trying to troubleshoot why my Dell Inspiron 5160 notebook wouldn't initiate a restore, I ran Dsrfix and had everything back on track within two minutes!"

North Carolina, May '07: "I just wanted to say thanks! I was able to restore my [Inspiron 9300] computer to factory original. I alway thought I had recovery CDs turns out they were application CDs with your help I was able to fix it."

Georgia, Apr '07: "Thank you for your utility! I recently tried to install Windows Vista to my Inspiron laptop, thinking "Surely what could go wrong....after all Dell is providing me the install utility for the laptop they sold me". Well I was wrong. The Vista OS had severe hardware incompatibilities. I decided to move back to the more familiar XP.......but oh no.....my PC restore utility was no longer accessible. I called DELL and went through 3 tech support levels until I got to their "guru". I explained to her that I could see my dell restore image partition intact, but couldn't figure out how to get to it. She finally concluded that it was unrecoverable and I would have to do a fresh install from CD. However, after I asked how was I ever going to get my PC restore utility back, she concluded it couldn't be done. Anyway....your utility worked like a champ to allow me to access the restore image. Thanks again!"

Albania, Apr '07: "I cannot stress how easy you've made my life with the DSRFIX solution. It worked like a charm [on my XPS M1710]."

Poland, Apr '07: "Thank you for your site, I found on it everything (and much more) what I need to restore my Dell. DSRFIX really works great, my Inspiron E1505 is now 'as shipped'."

Delaware, Apr '07: "Installing Norton Internet Security 2007 from CD - near the end of the install it rebooted without a request and was locked in a continuous reboot loop. I found your utilities [while searching] for information about the CTRL + F11 access to the restore utility. The sequence was not working on my Dimension 9150. Using your DSRFIX corrected it immediately. Your detailed instructions were perfect. Thanks for being there! I had done three windows reinstalls - without re-formatting - all unsuccessful. All's well today - thanks to your utilities."

Canada, Apr '07: "I would just like to thank you for all the time you put into keeping your site up and informative. My MBR was changed due to a partition split. I was able to repair the MBR manually using ptedit and then fixing it using your DSRFIX. with out your help i would not of ever figured this out."

Germany, Apr '07: "...successful fixing session on a DELL Dimension E520 Model. I was able to restore the system like a charm, thanks a lot!"

Texas, Mar '07: "Thanks for an excellent tool. I work for Dell in the tech support arena, and I have used the DSRFix on a number of our customers machines successfully. It has saved their butts, and helped me do my job better."

California, Mar '07: "Thanks for DSRFIX! It did the job perfectly! After being told by a Dell technician there is nothing that can be done to rewrite the MBR to access the CNTL F11 function I came across your website and after a few minutes I able to restore my XPS M1710 to factory state. In fact, it took less time to find your website, download, run the application and restore my computer then it took for me to get connected with the technician at Dell after waiting on hold. What you've accomplished to help others is nothing short of genius!"

Illinois, Mar '07: "[I attempted] an XP MCE installation on the D: (Backup) partition as a form of practice [which rendered] my Dell PC Restore capability non-existent. I took a shot, ran dsrfix /f /pbr4, and it worked perfectly. I rebooted, tried the CTRL-F11, and voila, there it was. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. The only thing more gratifying than getting a real, honest-to-goodness fix for my problem is the fact that good people like you still exist in the world."

Colombia, Mar '07: "I've just used your dsrfix!! and Finally Im able to return to using my PC !! yei!!! Thx alot!! I was using windows XP.. and then I upgraded to Vista.. But I didn't like it. Thx again!!"

Slovenia, Mar '07: "YOU THE MAN! You fixed not just my friends dell, but also fixed my head from a lot of frustration. I can confirm that DSRfix worked for this DELL inspiron 6000 like a charm! You saved me a whole day's work!"

Illinois, Feb '07: "Thank you for giving me the chance to fix my Dell Inspiron E1705. [Windows XP] encountered some kind of error and it opened a message box saying "Please insert the Windows Re-Installation DVD". I attempted to start the restore process by pressing the Ctrl and F11 keys but it wouldn't work. I called Dell Support (grin) and waited almost an hour to get someone on the phone. Once I got through, the technician I spoke with politely told me that I'd have to proceed with the manual re-install because I couldn't get the Ctrl + F11 to work. I even talked with a supervisor and he was apolgetic but said the same thing. I downloaded your ZIP file and tried it out. It worked! I successfully restored the factory image and everything went smoothly after that. The Ctrl + F11 worked this time after your utility fixed the MBR. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you created this fix and have allowed others to use it."

(unspecified), Feb '07: "You have saved me a lot of trouble. I was having problems so I started a Recovery process and it went bad (forgot to plug in the laptop). I was not able to use the computer at all! (Stuck on PBR 2.... Done black screen) Called Dell and the guy instructed me to install OS again with the Optional CD that I bought with the system. Asked him if I would be able to restore again through [DSR] and he said no. I stopped him right there and said that I want that option, that is why I got this computer. Was able to get everything back with your steps."

England, Feb '07: "Thanks you very much. I bought a Dell Inspiron 1300 last month with XP Home. I wanted to see what Vista was like so I installed that to play with - I then wanted to go back to my original settings but ctrl + f11 was broken. I created a bootable CD and your simple instructions were clear - it worked first time."

Virginia, Feb '07: "I would like to thank you for creating this program for Dell computers! I installed Linux for use in some classes, and it messed up the MBR. Your utility quickly and painlessly fixed the problem!"

Virginia, Feb '07: "I want to let you know that Dsrfix worked for me. Thank you very much for creating it. As you have probably heard many times before Dell's customer service leaves alot to be desired. I have a new Dell E1505 laptop."

England, Jan '07: "I'm trying to restore my Dell's partitions to their original state, ie Control F11 doesn't work and the utility and restore partitions won't boot! [After using Dsrfix] my Dell is all fixed! Both utility and restore! Many thanks."

Colorado, Jan '07: "Following [repartitioning on a Dimension 9200] dsrfix reported all ok except the reference partition table was not in sync. The /f fix fixed this and the dsrfix report is good all the way. Thanks for all your splendid work on these issues!!!"

Hungary, Jan '07: "I would like to render thanks for DSRFIX, and all your efforts invested to make it. I was a bit sceptical, but finally I tried your utility. Now, I am not just able to recover, but my newer-tried MediaDirect button works as well on my 3 months-old E1505. Thank You very-very much!"

Sweden, Jan '07: "I am really happy that i was able to restore my system (Dell Inspiron 6000) with the help of your program DSRFIX. Earlier i had partitioned the system in to many drives and also installed Fedora on it. With your program, i got my original Dell state. Thank You."

Puerto Rico, Jan '07: "Thank you so much for this nifty utility. It fixed my [Inspiron E1705] after a Dell support technician directed me to re-format the C: drive partition and run a fixmbr command from the Windows Recovery Console. I was very frustrated and disappointed because I think it was unnecessary to format the drive. Another Dell technician told me there was no way to "restore" the Dell System Restore Utility because "I" formatted the drive. Finally, after several Google searches, I found your DSRfix utility and fixed the problem. I can now access the recovery environment by pressing "ctrl+F11" during boot. Kudos!!!"

Ireland, Jan '07: "I was given an Inspiron 1150 with the worst virus attack I had ever seen. Decided to install a fresh copy of Win XP, not realising that there was a Dell restore partition available. Of course I then lost access to the Dell system restore via Ctrl-F11. But DSRFix resolved this in no time. Now have the original XP installation restored beautifully. Thanks!"

England, Jan '07: "This program of yours did a great job at restoring my Ctrl+F11 capability after I had partitioned my Inspiron 6400 hard drive into 2, to install XP Pro on the 2nd partition."

California, Jan '07: "Just wanted to drop you a note and let you know that I used your Dell DSR utility and that it worked perfectly. Thanks a lot for writing that. I had to replace a hard drive in one of my father's office computers [Dimension 3000] and wanted it back the way it was. But after I ghosted the disk it gave me a message when I ran the recovery that said something was wrong with the master boot record. I ran your utility ... now it works great. Thanks again."

Venezuela, Dec '06: "I just wanted to thank you for doing something a multi million dollar company isn't capable of doing for their users... I cant tell you just how disappointed I was when I opened my almost 3000 $ Dell Inspiron 9400 and found a paper as a restore CD. It seemed a joke to me, and I was almost sure that some day I'd need some app like the one you did, but was almost sure that dell would care to provide it... what a shame on that company. Just wanted to thank you. The repair process worked perfectly."

Australia, Dec '06: "I wasn't aware of the restore partition on my Dimension 8400 and had just started a "manual restore" when I got some problems with the BIOS that led to some Google searching, finding that I had a restore partition but of course the MBR was now overwritten. I found your site ... and ran DSRFIX. It just took me minutes to fix the problem. Thanks mate. I owe you a beer!"

Denmark, Dec '06: "I recenly purchased a Dimension E521 (Athlonx2 4200) with a 250 G harddrive. I partitioned the harddrive (C) into five drives and could not restore Dells. Found your dsrfix, and fixed the dsr! Worked fine!"

Utah, Dec '06: "I recently used your DSR fix to good effect on one of my customer's DELL machines, and for that I thank you for taking as much time to figure it out as you must have done."

Iran, Dec '06: "Just to say thanks to a man I would like to call a genius. I know well that writing such a program without having access to technical documents about those laptops is nothing except INGENUITY. Your program (DSRFIX) fixed my problem regarding (CTRL+F11) functionality of my new inspiron 6400. I installed second OS for dual boot and I lost the DSR capability. In just 1 minute you app fixed my problem. Thank you!"

Australia, Dec '06: "I just want to say thanks. You instructions and programs worked great!! (Inspiron 6000.)"

Japan, Dec '06: "Just wanted to drop you a short note to thank you for your truly terrific program. it really saves me ton of time and trouble after having mistakenly reinstalled the OS on my new computer."

Texas, Dec '06: "Great work man! I was wondering how to restore the PC restore utility after upgrading to VISTA. Tried your program and it worked like a charm on an Inspiron 6400 system."

Pennsylvania, Dec '06: "Just wanted to drop you a line and thank you wholeheartedly for your informative and useful page about the Dell PC Restore partition. I needed to do a restore on my boss' Dell 700m this weekend, got everything backed up, and Ctrl+F11 wouldn't work for me. Turns out that I must have 'broken' it when I reinstalled Windows due to some nasty spyware earlier this year. I found your page ... I ran the fix and my restore worked perfectly. Thanks again for putting something genuinely useful on the web. You saved my weekend!"

Colombia, Dec '06: "you just made my night...i have an inspiron and it was running winxp i decided to upgrade it to vista and i didnt like it...the thing is that when i decided to go back using the DELL SYSTEM RESTORE thingy, it wasnt there...OMG!!! i almost start crying...i found your website....i read all the info you have there and i finally was able to restore my dell system restore partition so i could reinstall that image again...thanx again....ur awesome..."

Pennsylvania, Dec '06: "I just have to take the time to say THANK YOU and YOU ROCK!!! Your DSRFIX utility saved me bigtime! I was upgrading laptops...so I sold my old one on eBay and needed to restore the machine to the factory state as I promised the buyer...however I had [previously] installed a plain-jane version of XP. I burned the ISO image to a CD, and I literally had the system restored in 10 minutes...THANKS AGAIN for making such an awesome, easy to use program."

Saudi Arabia, Dec '06: "I don't know how to thank you for helping me with your little and powerful tool to fix my inspiron-6400 MBR!! , it is fabulous, congratulation for that work."

England, Dec '06: "Many thanks for taking the trouble to put up your findings on a clear and easy to use web site, I had only had the laptop a couple of days, and had broken it ... I ended up reinstalling from the supplied OS disk, and somewhere along the line overwrote the MBR (I'd tried all sorts of utilities). Dell were useless in trying to access the hidden partition. Add the Inspiron 1501(AMD) model to the list of systems that your dsrfix fixes."

Sweden, Nov '06: "I just wanted give you a BIG thanks for writing dsrfix! It just helped me to restore a [Dimension 3000] where it's Dell boot code had been overwritten. The Dell support told me they couldn't [help with issues] where the MBR had been overwritten, but vaguely told me to search for pc-restore on the net. Indeed that helped, but that's thanks to you! Thanks thanks and thanks!"

Michigan, Nov '06: "Totally fixed my issue within minutes!!! I've been in IT for about 16 years now, and consider myself a pretty advanced user. Unaware that DSR even existed, I began a rebuild of one of my Dell systems by using the WinXP, driver, and program CD's ... After a very short period of time I realized how tedious this was going to be. A little bit of web research provided me some info on the DSR. Though I didn't know it at the time, I broke the MBR by starting a WinXP install. I was online with Dell support, and it became painfully obvious in a short amount of time that the two techs I dealt with had no idea how to work with DSR. Anyway, that's what led me to your website and the fix that literally took minutes after reading through your DSR pages. Due to your execellent design I have a really good handle on the DSR."

Colombia, Nov '06: "I used the dsrfix on my inspiron 9300 and on my moms latitude c640. thank you. You should get a medal !!"

(unspecified), Nov '06: "Thank you so much for writing and sharing your DSRfix program. It certainly made my life much easier during a recent restoration of my Dell PC. Recently I repartitioned the "first" of the two original hard drives purchased with my Dell XPS 4. I'm a fairly proficient PC user and ... although I could have rebuilt most of my system from scratch, I prefer the option of using the Dell Restore utility, which I probably would have lost if I formatted instead of using DXRfix. Thanks again for writing such a helpful program, providing outstanding documentation, being kind enough to publicize and share your work without cost. I just wish Dell would have done the right thing and provided a similar service to users or supplied separate media for the inevitable system restore."

Illinois, Nov '06: "DSRFIX Yippee worked great. CTRL F11 would not work, and even though I had a Windows XP re-installation CD from Dell, I wanted my system just like it was the day I bought it. The Partition was intact, Dell Diagnostics ran fine, but Control F11 did not work. I used my Nero 6.0 to create a bootable cd, put your dsrfix files on it and it worked. I now have a brand new Dell computer that is 3 years old. LOL!"

New Jersey, Nov '06: "I just wanted to send you an email in appreciation for your DSRfix tool. I used it yesterday to restore my one year old Dell Dimension 3000 after I inadvertantly wiped my hardrive with an operating system installation. My computer did not come with any backup discs, I spent hours on the Dell website trying to get all my driver/utility downloads, tried contacting Dell and was disconnected 3 times not to mention my warranty expired. The information you provided was very understandable for a non-tech like me. I was able to create a bootable CD and I restored the DSR function on my computer. I had only 2 alerts, dsrfix repaired these and restored ctrl + F11. Now when I start up I have a lovely blue bar at the top..."

Arkansas, Nov '06: "Wow - THANKS!!! I received a new dell XPS 700 the other day and being the geek that I am I updated drivers as soon as I got it out of the box. [I later] ended up having to reinstall Windows XP on before I realized I had an Image restore option. I found your document [and used Dsrfix]. Upon rebooting I got the blue www.dell.com bar! YEAH!!! I did reboot again and pressed CTRL+F11 and it took me into the recovery screen."

Denmark, Nov '06: "I installed XP Pro instead of XP Home on my daughters Inspiron 9200. Today I wanted to revert to XP Home, but Ctrl-F11 did not work. Phoned Dell support in Denmark, but they were sorry and could not help. Then I tried the internet, and DSRfix popped up. Fortunately I have a USB diskette drive, so I could boot from at Win98 Start disk, and DSRfix repaired the MBR. Thank you very much."

Netherlands, Oct '06: "i restore my dell Dimension 9150. Thanks thanks thanks."

California, Oct '06: "Thank you for your well-written pages on the DSR. Your work enabled me to recover (back to factory spec) my laptop. I had just gotten my 1710 and I decided to try out Vista RC2. After discovering why RC2 isn't a "gold" candidate, I decided to undo. This is when I discovered that MCE's Media Direct, which worked fine before my experiment, was no longer working. I found out about the CTRL-F11 feature, but that didn't work. Dell Tech Support told me that even though I could see all the partitions, it was "impossible" to get back to factory. Then I found your website, used the utility, and gave it a try. I'm quite pleased with the success I've had with it! Even DM is working again!"

California, Oct '06: "Wow, what a genous u are! Thanks a lot for the information! Dsrfix actually worked and restore the dell mbr!"

(unspecified), Oct '06: "DSRFIX is awesome! I just used DSRFIX on a Dell Inspiron 6000 that temporarily had Windows Vista on it, which screwed up the Ctrl-F11 recovery. DSRFIX fixed the problem completely! Thanks so much!"

Canada, Oct '06: "just wanted to drop you a note to let you know i tested it on my inspiron 2200 and 600m this evening, worked great on both of them."

Kansas, Oct '06: "First of all, you're the man! I wanted to get a laptop for my Mom ... I found a place that was selling one real cheap ... It was less than a year old ... I get into Windows, and see there's all manner of spyware and crud from the previous owner, so my first inclination is to use the Restore method to get the laptop back to factory condition. I do the CTRL+F11, but a little message says that some parameters aren't right ... [I ran Dsrfix and it] then said it would fix the minor alerts. I ran it with the "/f" switch, and was prompted to make the various changes. Voila! I was able to CTRL+F11 again, and this time the restore went to 100 percent! Wow..."

Arizona, Oct '06: "Dude, your drsfix utility just saved my a$$!!!"

Germany, Sep '06: "After some trouble with my Dell Inspiron 9400 I had to reinstall another OS on the laptop and get lost of all tools shipped with this computer. I just tried your tool "Dsrfix" and it worked. Thanks for shareing the tool."

(unspecified), Sep '06: "I just wanted to tell you that I used your DSRFix and recovered a buddy's Dell Inspiron 600m in record time. He bought it second-hand [but] didn't have media. We used DSRFix to restore the Ctrl-F11 feature and we were off and running in no time. Thanks for an AMAZING tool."

Washington, Sep '06: "I would like to thank you for helping me restore my pc back to it's original state. The good folks at Dell tech support could not do what you've done for me. My pc is a Dimension 4700, and is approximately 2 years old. Thanks to you, I should be getting a lot of use out of it now."

England, Sep '06: "Thank you very much for the articles of how to fix the Dell Restore Partition, and the utility is great. I took the oportunity to rebuild my Dell 3000 after a virus. After a rebuild with standard Win XP, I decided to test the fix for the Dell System Restore to see how it would work. It worked so easily."

California, Sep '06: "Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! You saved my life! I completely screwed up my laptop but restored it with the instructions for restoring the Ctrl+F11 DSR function. You are one clever dude! Really clearly written too."

Pakistan, Sep '06: "thankx alot for you recovery dsrfix system it realy workd and i have been talkin with dell and all the great technicians but they wer unable to do anythign and this thing word out thnx a milion man."

New Jersey, Sep '06: "I wanted to drop you a line and tell you how much I appreciate your helpful webpage on Dell Restoring. It saved my hide! Great work and thank you once again!"

New Jersey, Aug '06: "Thank you so much for making the information about Dell's PC Restore utility publicly available! It worked great. I used your DSRFIX repair utility on a Dell Inspiron 9200. Apparently the Dell "mbr" was overwritten [when] I deleted the "c:" partition and then recreated it to remove a nasty spyware program infection. Now, I can used the Dell's PC Restore utility in the future should notebook be re-infested."

Illinois, Aug '06: "I'm in awe of how well written and comprehensive your DSR piece is. I'm a freelance tech and while working on a client's Dell Inspiron 600m, discovered that some tech in Florida had installed [a bootlegged] XP Pro on her system. I was able to use dsrfix to restore her XP Home and updates and get it locked down properly."

New York, Aug '06: "I had a Dell E510 I needed to restore, and I had partitioned the C drive into two drives. CTRL- F11 did not work. I ran your tool and had two alerts. Both were fixed using the tool."

Maryland, Aug '06: "I used your utility to restore my DELL mbr after having the grub loader overwrite my MBR while attempting to load linux on my computer. It was very easy and quick and it restored the original dell MBR without affecting the data or any of the partititions on my hard disk."

Texas, Aug '06: "I changed my MBR while messing around with a second drive and suddenly the Ctrl+F11 technique didn't work any more. Your 20-second fix led me to be able to take a nap instead of spending all day loading my Dimension 3100 from scratch."

Mexico, Aug '06: "Today I came across your info re: Dell PC Restore hidden partition - thank you SOOOOO much, your info helped me restore my Inspiron 2200 ;) now I'm just sad that I'll never get those 48 minutes I spent on the phone with a Dell tech back."

Connecticut, Aug '06: "WOW! I prematurely re-installed XP on my wife's system w/o realizing that part of the system restore would be hosed - it was. So from that point, I could not do the system restore. Ran dsrfix & Voila! My MBR is back to normal & ctrl-F11 works again."

Washington DC, Jul '06: "I wanted to thank you for writing the DSRFix utility. It saved my day. Long story short after I installed linux I couldnt boot into the dell restore when I wanted to restore windows once more."

Norway, Jul '06: "Thank you for the Dsrfix utility. I had messed up the boot-system on my Inspiron 6000 playing with Linux partitions, and after hours of reading and searching on the net I came over your little program. It fixed everything in no time."

Tennessee, Jul '06: "I just used your DSRfix utility to fix my Inspiron 9200 after unknowingly messing up the restore utility. I had installed linux, and partitioned it, and thus broke the restore function. It worked quite well for me, and was fairly easy to use. Thank you for the time you spent to develop that tool and then allowing free use of it to those of us in need."

Colombia, Jul '06: "Dsrfix works great on my Dell XPS M1210. Thank you very much."

India, Jul '06: "Thank you for what you had written on the dell restore partition on your site. It helped me get my system back after 5 days of pain and agony. I had partitioned my disk, so ctrl+F11 didn't work at the start."

England, Jul '06: "Thanks, not only for creating DSRFIX but also for producing the best technical explanation that I have ever seen on the net. If only MS and Dell themselves were half as clear and complete! I downloaded DSRFIX and created a bootable cd from your iso image. To my total amazement IT WORKED and I now have the laptop returned to its original state! If it had not been for DSRFIX, I would probably have eventually reinstalled XP and lost all the Dell addons."

India, Jul '06: "I got a new Dell Inspiron and installed XP over it. Unaware of the fact that the Dell Restore is so vulnerable. Soon after I realized my folly, I searched online to see if I can still Restore my XP Home. Thanks to your efforts, I could successfully restore the Dell System Restore partition. Way to go!"

Washington DC, Jul '06: "Your step-by-step guide on how to restore the MBR on Dell laptops has saved me a huge amount of time and hassle. As I write this my laptop is successfully restoring the backup image which I couldn't access with CTRL-F11. Your tool has been a life saver - Thanks!"

England, Jul '06: "I think it was installing the Beta of Windows Vista on my Inspiron 9300 that broke the Restore Utility. Dell support were suitably unhelpful. However, after downloading your DSRFIX CD image, I was able to boot to DOS and run your fix utility to get my machine back to its original state without any problems. I imagine that I would have lost all my pre-installed software if it hadn't been for your help; I really appreciate all the time you've put in to your web page."

Colorado, Jun '06: "Thank you so much for Dsrfix! I [tried to repartition] the hard drive on my Dell Inspiron 8600 and it died part way through, causing the partition to be unreadable. I researched and found the PC Restore option but <Cntrl> F11 didn't work. I spent 2 hours with Dell tech support (and I use the term "tech" very loosely) and they tried to convince me that the DSR partition was corrupted in spite of showing no errors. They tried to get me to do a full reformat and reinstall. I did some researching online while I was chatting w/ Dell and found your Dsrfix info. I used it and fixed the problem. My machine was back to it's original sealed state in a matter of minutes. Thanks for doing what Dell should have done for me on a $3k computer purchase with the best service contract I could buy from them (which proved worthless)."

England, Jun '06: "thank you very much for your tool on fixing the dsr on the dell. you saved my day, now i have my comp back to the way it was when i bought it 4 months ago. dell support were no use at all, weeks of pure hassel and then the only option dell could give me to fix my comp was to format the comp and re-install windows."

Canada, Jun '06: "I just wanted to thank you for posting your solution to fixing the Dell System Restore feature. I have been trying for months to get that feature back after reinstalling XP from disk, and then installing/uninstalling Vista. It worked like a charm. It's too bad that Dell can't get their act together and develop fixes for their own software."

Texas, Jun '06: "Thank you so much!!!!! I have my own Dell 700m I travel with and yesterday I installed a Cingular Wireless High Speed Connection manager and everything went into the #%!&. I tried to use the dell restore process but I never got the blue line at the top of the screen. I found your utility this morning and now I am up and running again. I contacted dell and they said restore from CD and then download all of those drivers. Thanks so MUCH for taking your time to develop this utility."

New Jersey, Jun '06: "Wow....you just saved me a ton of time. So glad i stumbled across your utility. I could have restored this computer using the CDs, but then it would have forever lost its ability to self recover."

Canada, Jun '06: "Thank you for saving my hide today. I installed Vista beta2 on my wife's Dell M710 laptop. It wouldn't run her most important programme, so I wanted to restore the original XP. But, of course, I'd lost the ability to get into the DSR programme. Your DSRFIX saved the day."

Singapore, Jun '06: "I manage to restore my Dell Restore & Dell media direct function with the DSRFIX on my Dell XPS M1210. All I can say is a thousand 'Thank You'."

France, Jun '06: "Thank you very, very much for the simple, clear explanations and instructions. I could reinstall Windows on my Dimension 9150C hard disk (jammed after I had naively used QParted to set up a double boot), nearly understood what I was doing, didn't loose time and temper calling the Dell France hotline, and what's more, it worked."

Wisconsin, Jun '06: "My system is truly back to being fully operational. Thanks so much for your help!!! I thought I would have to spend a week on the phone with someone from Dell support. This was much easier and cheaper too."

Colorado, Jun '06: "I just wanted to say thanks for your dsrfix program and your website. I was on the phone with DELL IT and they could not help me with the PC Restore (ctl + F11) function. After I found your website I had my comp fixed in minutes."

Pennsylvania, Jun '06: "Used your DSR utility with success. Fixmbr had been run on the Dell and the control F11 wasn't working. This utility helped me get a friends Dell back to factory."

Iraq, May '06: "Your page helped me immensely when I was unable to restore the "CTR F11" restore function on my Inspiron 2200 laptop."

Germany, May '06: "Thank you very much for your Dellrestore page. It was very helpfull for me. I used dsrfix to restore a Dell Dimension 3000. It worked excellent."

Florida, May '06: "Just used your little program dsrfix (on a Dimension 9150). It worked great!!! Thanks a lot. You really helped me out."

Canada, May '06: "You just saved my life ! Your DSRfix utility just helped me save a friend's Dell Dimension 3000. I have been able to repair the MBR boot code and restore the computer as brand new. You are a generous "genius" !!!"

England, May '06: "I can't thank you enough for your documentation and restore tool! I thought I may be in trouble because I had no floppy in my machine, you can imagine how pleased I was to find the bootable CD in ISO format, a real life saver! Many thanks for the time and effort you put into this, very much appreciated. Oh, by the way, needless to say it worked perfectly!"

Pennsylvania, May '06: "Thank you so much. This program was a lifesaver."

Texas, May '06: "Thank you kindly for making the dsrfix program. It worked like a charm (on my) Inspiron 8600."

England, May '06: "I've just used your dsrfix program and had to write and say thank you for spending the time and effort in producing such a useful tool!! My windows install had broken beyond repair, so I created a new partition to install a second copy of xp to retrieve my data - upon trying the ctrl+F11 restore nothing happened... panic!... a few minutes later and google sent me your way and all is fine. My pc is 1 month old Dell 9150."

Taiwan, May '06: "Thanks for writing this tool. I have installed Windows XP Professional Recovery Console. Now I want to get my DSR back. It worked. I have my Inspiron 700m good as new."

Viet Nam, Apr '06: "Inspiron 6000, It's unlucky, XP crashed, I've format C:. I hope I can restore it as-shipped. I try to press Ctrl+F11 to run DSR but unsuccessful. I run command: dsrfix /f. Now I'm ready run DSR. It's miracle. Thank you very much."

California, Apr '06: "I tried to rebuild my (Inspiron 6400) from CDs and lost the PC restore capability when I installed Windows XP from the CD. I found your web site, did as instructed, and now I'm back to out-of-the-box condition."

Utah, Apr '06: "I have recently looked at you webpage for how to fix DSR Pc Restore. I finally understood what to do and I have now fixed my computer. I reinstalled Windows XP without knowing of the pc restore feature and have used you dsrfix to repair the problem. Again, I thank you very much."

Wales, Apr '06: "Thank you so much for your hard work. I have (restored) a dell dimension 9100 system after deleting the partition and reformatting using the win xp installation cd. The operation was successful."

Nevada, Apr '06: "Yet another thanks for a great little utility. I was selling my Inspiron 6000 and wanted it in its pristine out-of-box state. DSRFIX did the job and saved me hours!"

Ohio, Apr '06: "Thank You for your Dell Restore Fix utility. Your utility works perfectly on my Inspirion 6000 laptop. My system crashed hard so I put in the CD that came from Dell. I didn't realize that the CD was not a restore CD but a re-install CD. Once I realize what I had done, I was hosed and surprisingly Dell was no help. Just don't understand them sometimes."

Denmark, Apr '06: "I am writing because I have used you program to get my dell's Ctrl+F11 to work again after a partitioning. It worked perfectly. Thank you SOOO much for that fantastic page! You're a lifesaver!!!"

Australia, Apr '06: "I'm running a Dell Dimension 5150 and I inadvertently lost the means to access the Dell PC Restore Partition. I am extremely pleased and excited that, not being very computer literate, I followed your instructions and was able to reset the startup to now have access to the Dell PC Restore."

New Jersey, Apr '06: "My system is Dell Inspron E1505. I re-installed system using XP OS disc. After that ctl + f11 didn't work. dsrfix /f fixed the problem."

Italy, Apr '06: "Thanks! DsrFix runned perfectely on my new Inspiron 6400."

Switzerland, Apr '06: "Dsrfix fixed successfully Dell Inspiron 9100. We appreciate your great work saved me and my customer a lot of time."

Australia, Mar '06: "Your DSRFix utility proved invaluable. A friend purchased a Dell 9400 and decided he wanted two partitions and promptly booted his XP CD to setup the partitions as he wanted. Well, you can imagine what happened - then he passed it to me to get it fixed. I used your DSRFix utility to fix System Restore and all is well, thanks."

Georgia, Mar '06: "This is the best tool I have ever used your a genius. Thank you so much. Saved hours of work."

Texas, Mar '06: "As far as I'm concerned, You may now take your place in the pantheon of the hexadecimal gods. I can't thank you enough for your website and for your putting together such a clear and concise solution to the lost Dell System Restore. I Thought I would use Acronis True Image to make an image of the DSR ... When I pressed the 'F11' and Acronis popped up, I knew I was in trouble. Lo and behold, I had altered the MBR. I got up and thought, before I do anything more stupid than what I have already done, I'll try dsrfix ... and refreshed the reference partition and voila! the 'F11' flashed quickly across the screen and Windows came up and I am elated and very, very grateful to you!!"

(unspecified), Mar '06: "Thank you. I spent nearly an hour chatting with dell tech support where I finally requested CD's to recover my broken DSR. At the same time I was searching for help, I downloaded (dsrfix) and ran the fix. In no time I recovered and restored PC to the original factory condition. I am still waiting the recovery CD from dell!"

Illinois, Mar '06: "Thank you for publishing your tutorial on repairing the Dell PC Restore Partition. It saved me hours and I know my sister will appreciate it since it is her laptop."

Belgium, Mar '06: "Thank you a lot for your great tool. The blue dell line came back and I could go through the restore process !"

Ohio, Mar '06: "I really appreciate you website and all of the things that is offers. I was able to use your Dell Utilities to restore my System Restore Partition and repair my Inspiron E1705."

Belgium, Mar '06: "WOW!!!!!! Your Utility DSRfix.com is fantastic!!!!!! The superb and unmatched quality of the website's information and material, its clarity, simplicity, and thoroughness have directly solved my problem and have contributed to my obtaining a solid understanding of the process of Dell's PCRestore that until discovering your website was not available anywhere."

Norway, Mar '06: "I Bought an Inspiron 9400. After having upgraded the OS from Windows Home to Window Pro, the Dell Ctrl-F11 restore option was no longer available. But after having (1) downloaded the DOS-BOOT CD (DSRFIXCD.ISO) and then (2) having run DSRFIX.COM with the /F option, Ctrl-F11 worked perfectly next time a started the PC. Thank you!!"

Australia, Mar '06: "My shiny new Inspiron 9300 setup (WinXP) did a "nosedive" into oblivion. After talking with DELL Customer Support I reloaded Windows from the CD. No-one mentioned PC Restore to me at this time. So I loaded WinXP from scratch and (still had problems). Talked to DELL again and now they told me about the Restore partition. After about half an hour trying the CTRL + F11 keys, still no closer to fixing my problems, the DELL Customer Care rep said "There's nothing you can do but reformat the whole thing, as when the PC Restore partition is gone, it's gone!" Enter your *sanity saving* website and great dsrfix. Now I can access the Restore process using CTRL +F11."

England, Feb '06: "Thank you for your incredibly helpful page on how to repair the Dell PC restore option on my Dimension 5000. I downloaded the DRSFix DOS software onto a floppy. The repair was very quick and I was able to do the PC restore in short order. I could not have achieved this without your help page and the advice I had had from Dell was less helpful."

Washington, Feb '06: "Thank you for saving me so much time! I was able to follow your instructions to bring back my Dell Restore Partition and use it with your easy to use program."

Arizona, Feb '06: "I decided to delete and recreate the main partition and then install a new copy of WinXP Pro. I then decided, due to the lack of the proper drivers, to try the ctrl +F11 restore and, of course, it did not work. I followed your instructions to make a bootable CD and ran your utility. That worked perfectly."

Sweden, Feb '06: "It saved my week when I had messed up my one week old Inspiron 9400. Your information and testdisk application made it possible for me to restore my Dell. Your information was everything I needed and helped me much more than anything Dell did. Thanks!"

Connecticut, Feb '06: "Soon as I installed (Acronis Multiple OS Manager) I knew it messed up the mbr. I found my dsrfix.iso disk, booted into dos AND FIXED THE MBR. ONCE AGAIN YOUR PROGRAM WORKED!!! thank you"

Kentucky, Feb '06: "I would like to say YOU ARE MY HERO! With your DSRFIX, I have solved the problem for my recent purchased Dell Dimension B110."

England, Feb '06: "Another grateful thank you for dsrfix. Did just what it said, and saved me more time than I care to think about. Lovely piece of work - I take my hat off to you."

Washington, Feb '06: "Thanks so much for your help page. I used Dsrfix along with DrvKey an xp boot disk and USB flash drive and now I'm on track."

Illinois, Feb '06: "Dsrfix on Dell Inspiron 5150 worked like a champ."

Texas, Feb '06: "I just used your DSRFIX on a Dell XPS 400. Worked GREAT!!!!"

(unspecified), Feb '06: "I have an inspiron 9300 and I have made it dual boot to windows and SUSE linux. I wanted to re-install windows from the DSR, but I could not active the DSR partition. Your utility worked great. No problems."

Washington, Feb '06: "I have successfully launched the Dell PC Restore. Your work on the DSR and the utilities you provided are wonderful."

North Dakota, Feb '06: "I followed your excellent instructions, and I brought my son's Dell Inspiron 2200 laptop back to life. You saved me from causing further destruction in trying to recover his machine."

England, Feb '06: "After messing about with my new Dell laptop I tried to do a Dell Restore. As I had messed around with Fdisk the Ctrl-F11 function would not work. I came across the dsrfix utility on your site and literally after 30 seconds I was doing a restore. So many thanks for making such a utility available."

Washington, Feb '06: "I installed the new version of Norton System Works with Go-Back. Not that I had known that it would alter the boot code and break the Dell PC Restore, I had not. But after I uninstalled Go-Back I had noticed that my boot screen was different now. After running your dsrfix the screen is now back to the way it was. For that I thank you."

Florida, Jan '06: "Wow. I have just fixed a Dell 2200 with your DSRFIX.COM repair tool. I reloaded by CD and when it was all done I wanted to reload as delivered and found the www.dell.com blue line had went away. Really nice work, thank you."

Texas, Jan '06: "Thank you for the info and software to bring back the Ctl F11 Dell Restore funtion on my Dell Dimension 8400 Media Ctr 2005. The op system was installed to recover from a failure in the Media Ctr TV function. Things went from bad to worse. BootCD was made from Win98SE startup floppy... all went according to hoyle."

Canada, Jan '06: "Used your article and dsrfix successfully on my Inspiron 8600. Thanks for the valuable info!"

Pennsylvania, Jan '06: "Your DSRfix is an invaluable tool. I thank you for creating it. Your DSRfix utility just helped me save a friend's Dell Dimension 2400."

Georgia, Jan '06: "Thank you so much for researching Dell's PC Restore Partition! I spent 30 minutes in chat with a Dell rep who just didn't get it and 2 minutes on Google where I found your information. Guess I should have checked Google first!"

Poland, Jan '06: "Thank you very, very much for your dsrfix script. It saved me a long hours of OS and application re-installation. Your application and its descriptions made the tool very useful for millions of Dell PC users."

Netherlands, Jan '06: "Great yor explanation about DSRFIX utility. My DELL 9150 dimension doesn't have a floppy so I used the CD ROM option. I'am doubting about my SATA RAID configuration ... I read in your documentation that the utility supports SATA. Thanks for the instruction and the program. Everything is working OK !"

Illinois, Jan '06: "Just wanted to thank you for the information on restoring Dell partitions -- I was working on an Inspiron 5160, for one of our teachers, that crashed during the restore process. Restored the boot partition and fixed the ctrl+F11 function."

California, Jan '06: "Who would have known that I would screw up my dell's recovery bridge, search the net, and find a saint that has been kind enough to explain it with such clarity and detail? Well done my man."

France, Jan '06: "I had a severe crash on a Dell8400 XP pro sp2. After many runs of chkdsk /r, and not boot, I made the mistake to run fixmbr and fixboot. After 24 hours, my help message to Dell as no answer yet. One hour ago I found your Web page. In one minute the lost DSR problem was fixed. Anyway an honor medal should be given to you for your little marvellous utility."

England, Jan '06: "One of my colleagues had a problem with his Dimension 5000 (a broken hard drive totally corrupting his Windows partition). The Ctrl-F11 could not recreate the Windows partition because of the driver errors and he hadn't made any recovery CDs (and Dell don't ship any CDs). But with Drive Image to copy the Utility and Restore partitions to a new hard drive then your fantastic new "dsrfix" program to wire everything up I got him back in business very quickly."

New York, Jan '06: "You are the man! Your program got me back to factory settings in the wink of an eye."

Wales, Jan '06: "I resized the NTFS partition and installed Linux, but now I have no need of it. I removed Linux using the Partition Magic program. The dsrfix program worked without a hitch. Didn't take long either."

England, Jan '06: "I'm emailing you to thank you for an excellant piece of code that helped me return my wifes Dimension 3100 to factory state after using a reinstall CD. Your program worked exactly as you said it would."

England, Jan '06: "Dsrfix does it again! Just tried using drsfix (with the iso version, burnt using imgburn) on a Dell 3100 - and it worked just fine! Thanks for a very useful program!!"

Scotland, Jan '06: "Your fix is quite simply SUPERB. I send you thanks all the way from Scotland."

Canada, Jan '06: "Your tool saved me 3+ hours of reinstalling the troubled XPS GEN 2... Thank you."

Canada, Dec '05: "I want to thank you for your good advices on how to restore the Dell restore partition. I used your DSRFIX program and it worked very good. I had lost the ctrl f11 when I reinstalled Windows on my Dell Dimension 5100."

Virginia, Dec '05: "This tool worked perfectly. I have a Dell Inspiron 1300 which at XP home preloaded. I was trying to re-partition and install Win2000 and it blew away the MBR boot stuff .. I finally got Win2000 installed, but ran into numerous driver issues, so I needed to go back to XP home. Your instructions were clear, the procedure(s) was easy and the tools worked great."

Nebraska, Dec '05: "I tried to reformat my machine to install a clean XP in addition to wanting to keep the restore partition so in case I wanted to restore it not knowing that I would not be able to. In any case, Dell told me to delete everything and re-install from scratch. After finding your utility and trying it on an Inspiron B120, it worked GREAT!!!"

Spain, Dec '05: "I have just run the dsrfix and it has worked. Thanks god there is people like you in the Internet!!! Thank you very very very very much."

Colorado, Dec '05: "I'm sending this from my wife's email, as my system restores itself.... Thanks to you and DSRFIX! I can't thank you enough. I was dreading having to either install a different operating system, or dealing with Dell Support. Your little utility saved me a bunch of time."

(unspecified), Dec '05: "You, my friend, are the MAN!! Thank you so much for your website and your application. I tried installing Ubuntu Linux and it wrecked havoc with some Grub Loader or something. Then I used Partition Magic/Boot Magic and good gosh I was left with a seriously unbootable system. Anyway, Partition Magic's Rescue Disk did help to get the system booting again, but I really wanted my DELL Restore to comeback also. Then your website and program did the rest flawlessly. You should be paid by Dell lots of money!!! Heck they should hire you as a consultant or something."

Texas, Dec '05: "Sincere thanks for your write up on the restore process and your wonderful tool to recover. I installed Vista on my 8400 and when I decided I no longer wanted it your tool saved me hours of work!"

England, Dec '05: "I have used your Dsrfix program today, to recover a Dell Inspiron 6000. We had installed a clean Windows on this laptop, and hence lost the restor capability. Your utility recovered this."

Netherlands, Dec '05: "Wow. It's a great job you provided us DELL-users with a chance to re-install the original MBR. Very strange that DELL doesn't provide us with this (or at least adds a big WARNING-card in the box when shipping a new computer). I ran your utility and my MBR is back in its initial DELL-state again. THANKS! My Dimension 8400 will be 1 year old in january and I was planning to do a fresh install this week, so I'm a happy man."

California, Dec '05: "Thank you sooooo much for this! Dell's site was frustration, other forums and tech sites were few and random. I even sent for this illustrious "Recovery Disk" and I got the wrong one. ARGH! Anyway, you saved me an entire evening and I thank you!"

New York, Dec '05: "Thanks for providing a great utility! I just used your utility to restore the Ctrl+F11 to my Inspiron 6000, after hosing the MBR with an install of Windows Vista Beta1 I'm testing for MS. The program ran perfectly as advertised."

Egypt, Dec '05: "Thank you very much for your helpful tools and your assistance, it works 100%."

Holland, Dec '05: "Thank you for writing Dsrfix. Dsrfix worked great on a Dell Dimension 9150!"

Canada, Dec '05: "I used your DSRfix to fix my DELL dimension 5150 MBR. It works! Amazing program you wrote. I feel very lucky to read your paper and get this DSRFIX program to recovery my Dell PC."

New York, Nov '05: "Your utility worked like a champ on my laptop! My relatively new XPS Gen2 had some major Bluetooth issues and I had to reload XP. I loaded XP Pro from scratch, so of course I lost the ctrl-F11 screen on boot. Your utility has brought it back! No problems whatsoever."

England, Nov '05: "Your Dsrfix is fantastic. It worked really well - no thanks to dell. I bought a new dimension 9100. Having re installed the windows xp home from the disk they provided I found I'd lost all the other software such as DVD drivers. I tried their ctrl F11 at startup (which like many others I only found out about when it was too late) and of course it wouldn't work. Your analyzer which came up with just one alert - boot code does not match dell mbr and using drsfix /f it fixed it immediately. I rebooted the computer and ctrl F11 worked first time and without a hitch. Well done a marvellous programme."

Texas, Nov '05: "I ran dsrfix and it worked flawlessly on my Dell XPS Gen 4. Before all I got was keyboard error when hitting cntl f11 Now it goes right to PC restore. Your hard work fixed my computer and I am grateful for the work you put into this."

Virginia, Nov '05: "Thank you for your wonderful program that allowed me to fix my Dell computer. I had mistakenly reloaded windows xp not realizing that PC restore was available on the machine. My machine was not even a month old and suddenly was nothing but problems. All the Dell technicans I spoke with said it was gone forever and had little interest in helping me. I was heartbroken over what I had done to my new computer. I decided to try your solution, it worked beautifully and in 10 short minutes I had my computer back."

Germany, Nov '05: "Hallo! Thank you for your helpfull Homepage with the Step by Step Guide to Dell Restore."

California, Nov '05: "Thanks for the dsrfix. It enabled me to restore the system even though I had used partition magic and re-partioned. The system restored into my custom partitioning."

Vermont, Oct '05: "Thanks so much for making your dsrfix info available online. It was run on a Inspiron 6000 that had a "broken" link. Your program worked perfectly."

England, Oct '05: "Thank you for your resources on the Dell Restore Partition. I used the utilities to successfully restore my Inspiron 6000 after the CTRL-F11 boot manager was damaged (system was also unusable). The only solution Dell could offer was to FDISK the drive and manually restore OS, Drivers and Apps. from scratch. Thanks again and keep up the good work."

England, Oct '05: "I have just used dsrfix on a Dell Dimension 5100 and it worked exactly how it said it would! When you use the reinstallation CD it doesn't tell you that you lose access to the restore partition. Having used the DSRfix, I was able to restore the system right back to the EULA screen (ie fresh out the box, first boot) in about 10 minutes. Thanks for a simple & effective utility (although I sure it took a while to research it all) that I now carry as part of my 'electronic' toolkit."

North Carolina, Oct '05: "Your dsrfix file worked perfect!!! I couldn't believe it. The machine I did it on was a Dell Inspiron 6000. Thanks again and you are so smart for figuring out a way to get the restore drive back."

Alabama, Oct '05: "I had a successful recovery with a dimension 4700 with SATA harddrives. I used dsrfix and it fixed everything. Great utility and I only wish you would have written this about 8 months ago when I screwed it up a while back."

Maryland, Oct '05: "I just wanted to say 'thanks' for your MBR repair utility. After two full days of trying to restore 'just windows' and with no useful help from Dell - even though I told them that such a MBR repair file was all I needed, I found your site. It saved my bacon!!"

Missouri, Oct '05: "My Ctrl+F11 isn't currently working on my Dimensions 4700 because I had previously attempted to reinstall WinXP from the installation CD. I used Dsrfix on my system, and it worked perfectly. Thanks for creating it -- you saved me lots of reinstallation hassles!"

California, Oct '05: "Your utility "DSRFIX" worked flawlessly on a Dell Inspiration 5100. Thanks for the utility, much appreciated."

California, Oct '05: "Your DSRFix program and information helped me out this weekend. I was setting up 2 new Dells for a friend. I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP and I wanted him to still be able to restore his original setup in case he wanted to sell them later. I lost the ability to Ctrl-F11. I found your dsrfix and fixed the issue."

France, Oct '05: "Thank's a lot to help me to restore the ctrl F11 function on my inpiron 6000. I had lost this function when i installed xp from the cd. Your site help me larger and i met no problem with dsrfix."

Pennsylvania, Sep '05: "I got in this situation from taking a computer with XP Home SP2 and trying to upgrade it to XP Pro SP2 - but it got stuck in a reboot loop. Found your DSRFix utility and used it on a brand new Dell Dimension 9100 with an SATA hard drive. It said everything was good except for the Dell MBR. So I ran it with the /f, and it worked!"

England, Sep '05: "Running your program fixed the problems on my Dell 4700 Dimension computer."

Hungary, Sep '05: "Thank you for the usefull instructions to repair my DELL INSPIRON 2200's MBR. It's workd well."

Indiana, Sep '05: "Thank you for writing this software to repair my dell mbr! I own an Inspiron 6000 that I loaded a fresh copy of XP form the dell disc. I was unaware that changing the MBR would render the restore partition useless. To my surprise 'Dell Restore' was gone! I ran Dsrfix and rebooted and there it was, the blue 'dell.com' bar was back! Thanks so much!"

England, Sep '05: "My Dimension 8400 appeared to be inaccessible ever since I did an upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro. The system didn't respond to CTRL F11. Many thanks for dsrfix."

Washington, Sep '05: "I want to thank you for this program it worked very well on a clients dell dimension 8400"

(unspecified), Sep '05: "thank you for the information to restore the restore utility. i have recovered the PC restore on my Inspiron 6000."

Washington, Aug '05: "Your Dell Restore Utility worked perfectly on my Dimension 2400. I couldn't be more pleased. Thanks for all of your efforts to develop this utility."

Norway, Aug '05: "Dsrfix success! big thanks for your work on the "Dell restore partion" problem. My system is a Dimension 9100. It is a shame that Dell doesn't provide us with such a utility."

Colombia, Aug '05: "thank you SOOOO much for dsrfix! i just followed your instructions and it worked fine!!!"

Arizona, Aug '05: "I just wanted to thank you for dsrfix--I managed to really mess up my new Inspiron 9300 and wanted to get it back to factory settings. Ctrl + f11 didn't work, but I hadn't done anything to the restore partition, so I thought I'd try your method. It worked like a charm--I only had the one "boot code does not match" alert."

Scotland, Aug '05: "Your DSRfix utility got me out of a sticky situation on my Dimension 3000. I'm an IT Professional but screwed up as we all do from time to time! DSRfix worked like a dream. Thanks again I really appreciate it."

California, Jul '05: "[To resolve a problem] Dell told me to install Windows XP from the OS Recovery disk, which, of course, screwed up the Image Restore <Ctrl-F11> functionality. Dell could not help me get that functionality back. I succesfully ran your tool on my new Dell 8400 system, which has an SATA hard drive. The <Ctrl-F11> functionality was easily restored and I happily have the Dell System Restore capability back."

Indiana, Jul '05: "I wanted to say thank you for writing DSRFIX, it works very well."

Indiana, Jul '05: "I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop on which I reinstalled the OS using the Windows XP Pro CD provided. Ctrl F11 at startup would not invoke the factory restore. Your dsrfix worked perfectly. Dell certainly wasn't any help."

Oregon, Jul '05: "I would like to thank you for the DSRFix program. My dell model was Dimension 4700. I lost the acess to System recovery partition when I tried to install XP professional on my PC. DSRFix worked like prefectly on my pc. Later I could restore my PC. Thanks a lot for your program it was great help."

Louisiana, Jul '05: "I was able to make a win98 startup cd and used your program to fix my mbr and use the ctrl f11 restore."

California, Jul '05: "I am the proud new owner of an Inspiron 6000. Despite a reasonable amount of care, I've managed to mess up the DSR function. I'm now able to boot into recovery and it looks like the system restore is working. Thank you very much."

Germany, Jun '05: "I run your programm on my Inspiron 510m and it works fine! Thank you!"

(unspecified), Jun '05: "The only thing I can say is thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. Sorry for "foaming at the mouth", but this Dell DSR has been a problem in my side for a while. I am computer technician and I've tinkered with the Dell PC Restore partition and have been able to recover them manually, but this really makes it much easier."

Texas, Jun '05: "I upgraded to XP PRO only one week after receiving my notebook and did not know about the CTRL+F11 feature. I then tried to create the Media discs but was no longer able. Thanks to your tool (DSRFIX) I was able to restore my factory image and start over."

(unspecified), Jun '05: "I tried installing Novell linux on my new dell laptop and something went wrong and I had no idea how to even restore windows. Using a combination of a win ME cd and a flash drive I used your automated fixer tool and it WORKED!"

Pennsylvania, Jun '05: "Your DSRFix program has allowed me to fix the restore function on Dell Inspiron 1150s, Dell Dimension 2400s and Dell Dimension 3000s."

Missouri, Jun '05: "As a fellow IT professional and Dell customer I truly appreciate your very clear advice on working with Dell's MBR. Your utilities and detailed information saved me tons of calls and headaches! I was able to repair my MBR and restore my system in no time thanks to you."

Germany, May '05: "I recently bought a new Dell Dimension 5000. A few days ago I installed a boot manager (Acronis OS Selector) which destroyed my Dell recovery functionality. I found your page and used your tools to recover the MBR. The recovery functionality is working fine again."

Massachusetts, Apr '05: "awesome - your tool helped me figure things out quickly! luckily it was only two alerts.. "

I appreciate your comments, and thanks for the feedback!

author: Dan Goodell