Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 12:33:41 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 03:11:02 -0500, "...winston"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:26:27 +0000 (UTC), Dave wrote:

I'm glad all you folks can offer such helpful advice when we really know
nothing about what is going on:
1. What was the original hd layout. My Dell has a small Dell utility
partition, a recovery partition then the main os partition, which I later
split. The machine boots to the recovery partition (marked active)

What's the purpose of booting to a recovery partition?


The bootloader is on the Recovery Partition which includes the
instructions to load Windows.

It also provides the ability to use the F8 option to recover to factory
condition.

Interesting, thanks. Like the OP, I also have a Dell, but the bootloader
apparently wasn't on the recovery partition because I blew that partition
away without causing any boot issues.

My impression is that the boot loader resides on the System partition.

Or do I meant the Boot partition? Probably not, but Microsoft's
nomenclature is confusing in this area. It's not of any day-to-day
importance to me, so I don't bother to keep it straight...

Either way, not the Recovery partition.

RC covered the under-the-hood explanation.

On that Dell...the Recovery Partition is also the System Partition and
the Active Partition.
- i.e. all the tools provided by Windows and Dell reside in the same
location.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps