Normally you can rebuild the Windows partition from the recovery partition from the main menu in Windows. Not sure about Dell, but Compaq would also give you the ability to create a recovery tools CD if Windows would be rendered inaccessible, and if you were not smart enough to create the OS CD's and the recovery tools CD before disaster struck, you could download the recovery tools CD from HP's web site.
If what you are after is to save the recovery partition and wipe the drive, reinstall the recovery partition, then use
bootitng. Simply download the small utility, make a boot floppy or a boot CD if you have no floppy and boot with it into a dos environment. Say no to the first window to avoid installing it to the drive and go into maintenance, click on the partition work icon and highlight your recovery partition in the appropriate drive if you have more than one drive. Click on "image" on the right, it will say "paste pending" or similar at the bottom, if you want to put the image on a DVD, click on the radio button on the left for "CDz" and click "paste" on the right, follow instructions. You can also have a USB drive plugged in before going into partition work and it will show up as another drive and you can click on the radio button for that drive an click on the appropriate partition in it and select "paste", then navigate to the directory you want to put it in and type a name at the top and click OK, it will ask you what the maximum size of the image you want, go for the 4GB, if the image will be larger it will make more than one file, or burn it to more than one CD/DVD if required. When it asks if you want to validate the image, do it when creating, you do not need to validate when restoring.
Now run a test to see what size of partition your image will need for restoration, click on the drive partition or CD/DVD that contains the image file and select "image", it should ask if you want to create or restore an image, select "restore", then navigate to your image file and highlight it and click OK at the top, now at the bottom of the window it should say "paste pending" with the partition size required for the image.
It only copies data, not free space like dd, and compresses it. My Linux / partitions are 10GB, if they take up 5.5GB of it, the image size is 1.5GB. Most of my Windows partitions images are 15GB and the image is only 2GB.
Then once you've imaged the partitions you want to back up, highlight the partition(s) and click "delete" on the right and put a check in the "clear boot sector" and "wipe" boxes to wipe the drive by writing zeros across it and making like a new drive off the store shelf. Then when your left with free space, click on the free space and click "create" to create the partition, pick the appropriate file system and make it the same size as what it was when you made the image (or what the image requires), if it's Fat, leave the check mark in the "format now" box. Once the partition is created, after the surface scan (which will isolate any bad sectors), then you can restore the image and your back in business.
To restore, click on the CD/DVD button. or USB pen or external drive, or second/third/fourth internal drive that has your image and click "image" select "restore" and navigate to the directory that contains it and it will say paste pending at the bottom, navigate to the drive partition where you want to restore it too and paste it there.
Make a note as to what the size of the partitions are and the file system type for restoration as it has to be the same. Bootitng is adamant when it comes to creating partitions to properly align them within C.H.S. values, if the original partition was not properly aligned, the partition that the image needs will be slightly different in size, but if you use bootitng to make the new partition, it will jive with the image bootitng made, it may not necessarily be the size you specify.
You can use bootitng without obligation, once you install it to the drive for the boot manager features, you are "asked" to pay $35.00 US after 30 day trial.
