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System recovery options
I just bought a vostro laptop. It has win7 Pro installed. Can anyone tell me what system restore options I have. Dell back up and restore is not installed though I have the option to create restore media. However there is no windows activation code on the laptop or in the paperwork. There was with my last Dell laptop. How could I reinstall windows without an activation code or would the reinstall media somehow not need an activation code as it would be reinstalling to this Dell laptop with its specific service tag?
On my last Dell laptop Dell backup and restore was installed and there was a reset to factory state option but there doesn't seem to be such an option with this new laptop.
Regards Steve
Philip_Yip
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October 22nd, 2016 18:00
Did you buy this new direct from Dell or is it 2nd hand?
You can clean install Windows 7 using Dell OEM System Locked Preinstallation. First press [Windows] and [ r ] and type in msinfo32 and press [Enter].
Let us know the system model, the BIOS version and the SMBIOS version.
steveis2
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October 23rd, 2016 15:00
Sorry I should have added I bought it from BT in the UK and it runs windows 7 proffessional
Steve
steveis2
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October 23rd, 2016 15:00
Thanks for your reply the bios isDell Inc AO6 30/12/2015 and the SMBIOS is 2.8. It's a Vostro3558 and it's brand new.
Steve
Philip_Yip
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October 24th, 2016 07:00
Okay so go to Control Panel and then to "System and Security" and then to administrative tools. Then select computer management and then finally can you select Disk Management. Can you the open the snipping tool and provide us a screenshot? This way we can see if the system was setup with a Recovery Partition.
Next can you try this link with your service tag to see if the .iso is available to download from Dell:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/OSISO
I think this is only available for Skylake (6th generation Intel systems) whereas this is a Broadwell (5th generation Intel system) but its worth a try.
One other thing to note is that you can download a Windows 10 .iso from Microsoft and clean install Windows 10 RS1. This system likely has a Windows 8.1 Pro UEFI BIOS SLP key and was sold using downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-oem-and-retail-iso/
You should apply UEFI BIOS update A10 (especially before clean installing Windows 10):
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER03933877M/1/Vostro_3458_A10.exe