What you did with the Hirens CD looks to have damaged the restore feature. To restore you turn to your restore DVDs and if not, call Dell to ask what to do next.
I did not find this procedure at Dell so if someone told you to do this, they mislead you and now you get to pick up the pieces.
Bob
>>>>>>I STARTED WITH THIS:
Download Hiren's BootCD from Download HirensBootCD 15.1 | HBCD Fan & Discussion Platform
Burn Hiren's BootCD to a CD
Put the Hiren's BootCD into CD Drive and Reboot computer
Select "Mini XP" from the menu
Double click on "My Computer"
Identify the partition that you use for your operating system
Right click on that partition and select "Format" to ensure a clean install
>>>>> ALL THIS WORKED FINE!
Identify the recovery partition and go to the "Imaging" folder
Right click on the "Imaging" folder and select "Command Prompt Here"
At the command prompt type (substituting c for your particular recovery partition and e for the partition that you use for your operating system)
imagex /apply c:\dell\image\factory.wim 1 e:\
>>>>AT THIS STEP IS WHERE I RAN INTO TROUBLE AND GOT THIS ERROR: imagex is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
I'm not sure what to do now, because there IS a factory.wim file at this location. Please, any help would be appreciated, thank you!
vista, dell inspiron 537

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