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Dell PC Restore by Symantec
Hi. I have a 4-5 year old Inspiron 6400 Win XP Home and its still running fine but I'm thinking about using the Dell PC Restore by Symantec to restore the laptop to the original factory default. The reason I'm thinking about doing this is that there is a bit of a lag sometimes when I'm traversing folders in Windows Explorer and the occasional error opening an application like Bluetooth. I think I just have a lot of clutter and I'm not experienced enough to edit the registry myself.
My concern is this - I have updated the BIOS to A17. Are there any known issues? Would it be wiser to just do a clean install with the Windows XP Home CD?
Thanks for any advice.
Ali
dgkpcon
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April 1st, 2011 11:00
You CAN NOT save or replace the dell HPA (hidden partition) which the dell restore and media direct are stored.The partition for each is stored at the begining and end of the HDD partition in FAT32 not NTFS. See this and read about the Ghost partition http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.shtml .
ali1ear
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April 1st, 2011 11:00
Hi,
If i saved the C:\Dell\Utilities folder that contains the BOOT_DSR.exe to CD and did a clean install on the C: drive and then replaced the Dell folder, I think that would retain the ability to use the Dell Restore utility since the OS image needed is on a seperate FAT32 partition.
It would make more sense for me to use the Dell Restore by Symantec because I would retain the pre-installed applications. I was just wondering if there would be any reason for it not to work because the BIOS version has changed.
I suppose I can try it first and if anything goes wrong, do a clean install.
dgkpcon
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April 1st, 2011 11:00
If you want to do away with all the bloatware that got loaded on these earlier systems,do a clean fresh install.By doing so you will wipe the drive of ever being able to do a factory restore again.If you feel you do not need restore any longer then clean install would be fine,if you feel you would need it in the future just use restore.
ali1ear
50 Posts
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April 1st, 2011 14:00
Dude!
My query was whither my BIOS change could possible complicate things if I used the Dell Restore by Symantec.
I never said anything about removing the FAT32 partition. My Windows system partition is the C: drive. All I was talking about was doing a clean install on the C: partition and then replacing the Dell utilities folder with the DSR.exe file. (As an alternative to using Dell Restore by Symantec).
The Dell folder is located in the root of my C: drive.
I think maybe you've read my post a little too quickly and jumped to the wrong conclusion.
If I wanted to remove the FAT32 partition I would run the DSRIRRemv2.exe file.
dgkpcon
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April 1st, 2011 19:00
No i did read it "If i saved the C:\Dell\Utilities folder that contains the BOOT_DSR.exe to CD and did a clean install on the C: drive and then replaced the Dell folder, I think> " that would retain the ability to use the Dell Restore utility " That last part about being able to retain and use the restore utility.
NO you can not once gone you can not re-create it.