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Factory rest/reinstall Windows
Hi I've been using my cell inspron 7720 for around 4/5 years and upgraded to win10 when they had the free upgrade option. However i want to reformat C: and reinstall Windows from scratch - I can't for the life of me find a way to do it Can I Fdsik it like I would in the old days - never had a laptop before and it seems tied into what dell want me to do with it... very frustrating I've tried the options in windows to reset but it prepares itself then tells me there is a problem and it can't continue Apparently this is an issue with win10 but the suggested fix of going to cmd doesn't work and nor does creating a boot DVD as the dell bios seems to bypass booting from the DVD and I can't change the boot sequence anyway.... Is there anyway around these problems as I really need a restart.... Ideally I'd like to un-dell the machine so I have full control over what I do with the machine.... Ps. Why does my post not include the paragraphs I split it into?! Sorry about that guys
ejn63
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May 14th, 2017 12:00
You will need to turn OFF secure boot (if it's on) and enable the legacy option ROMs (may be called "Legacy Mode") before you can boot the system to a DVD.
ejn63
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May 14th, 2017 05:00
You need to boot the system from the WIndows 10 install media - if there's an administrator password on the system that's blocking you from changing the boot sequence, press F12 at powerup, which should bring up the list of bootable devices. If the DVD doesn't work, you can also make a bootable flash drive and use it to do the installation.
You can't work on a drive that you've booted from so there's no alternative to booting from something other than the hard drive.
AIS240
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May 14th, 2017 12:00
Thanks for the suggestion but I only get 2 options - windows boot manager which takes me to windows or something called network boot
AIS240
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May 15th, 2017 12:00
Thanks, seem to have stumbled across it but its worked!
Now I need to work out if I can change the network card as i know these things can be restricted