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I'm about to clean install Windows 11 onto my laptop. I'd like to know whether this will affect the "BIOS Recovery Tool" currently installed.

My laptop uses the "BIOS Recovery 3" version in that link there. I actually just spoke with Dell about this over the phone and they did actually tell me that it would NOT affect it; though their English wasn't very good so I came away not overly-assured by them. I came here just to see if anyone else has any insight into this. I'm confident now that it does not affect it, but some elaboration on the matter would help a bit, if possible.

The picture below shows my current "BIOS recovery" settings, if that helps to add detail to my question.

Dell Bios Update/Recovery settings page

Robotnik
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william
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3 Answers3

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It depends on how you perform the clean install.

For a BIOS recovery from Harddrive to work, a partition is created with a system image inside it. The BIOS recovery from harddrive will use that partition to reinstall windows as if it were newly purchased.

If you leave this partition in tact during your own installation, this option will continue to work, but if you remove it, if you ever execute the BIOS recovery from harddrive option, it will try but then fail.

If you want to be absolutely sure that nothing goes wrong, if you have a spare harddrive lying around, clone the content of one disk to the other, or replace the disk entirely, and you can always swap the disks if you want the recovery to work again.

If you know what you're doing, if you perform the installation by booting from the install medium, when it asks you to make partitions, don't delete any partition, just format the one that Windows is currently on, and then select that same partition to install to and it will not touch the recovery partition.

If you have more question about this, like, how to identify the recovery partition, please open Disk Management, make a screenshot, and post a new question with that screenshot, and we'll reply to it seperately.

Also, as stated in the image you posted from your bios, your harddisk cannot be a Self Encrypted Disk (eg, no bitlocker active on that partition).

LPChip
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The BIOS recovery from Harddrive is a method used by some vendors to recover from a corruption of the BIOS program itself.

This utility has no relation to the operating system (Windows or other), nor does the operating system relate to this update. Updating the OS or the BIOS does not impact one on the other.

Dell How to Recover the BIOS on a Dell Computer or Tablet gives this description:

The BIOS Recovery tool is designed to recover a corrupted BIOS (this often displays as a POST or boot issue). They are based on Boot Block Technology. The BIOS Recovery 2 (BR2) software's main feature is to provide the flexibility to recover a corrupted BIOS using a BIOS recovery file from the computer's primary hard disk drive or an external USB drive. While the BIOS Recovery 3 (BR3) software adds a computer start-up check that can be enabled in the BIOS to add an autorecovery capability to the BIOS recovery process.

This adds a method for refreshing the BIOS from disk when it becomes corrupted. If you don't enable it, the only other option is to use a BIOS installation disk. Enabling it seems to offer a much easier method to overcome BIOS corruption than via USB. For Dell computers, the newer BIOS will also check itself actively for corruption on boot and will recover itself automatically using this file.

harrymc
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To anyone who comes in the future, see this answer on the Microsoft Community forum for the most straightforward answer.

The tool will save a known good copy of the bios on the hard drive - and while the backup copy on the drive will be wiped, it'll be backed up by the new windows install the next time the bios is updated.

Otherwise LPChip's answer offers further detail into the matter.

Journeyman Geek
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william
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