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reformatting my hard drive
I have a studio 1536 (just bought it in October) I am running vista and have had issues from about day 5. N E way,,, I am trying to restore it to factory defaults again but this time I feel as though I need to completely reformat my hard drive, because I have allowed Dell techs to remotely help me with this in the past and each time they have left the old version of windows on C:\ but they have just renamed it. EX. windows; windows old; & windows old .ooo. all that is just eating up my space and creating issues with my virus scanner (it takes like three hours to scan and I have yet to install my programs) & files are being misplaced in those old files.............. Crazy!!! So I am trying to format the hard drive before reinstalling my OS. I don't have a floppy drive and can't format my dvd or my flash drive to use as a startup disc. What should I do??
darrylducanada
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March 21st, 2009 08:00
Although I don't have the Studio 1536, it is my understanding that the original factory install would still be in the hidden space on the hard drive. If that is the factory defaults you mean, then I believe you also would have received the Vista re-install disk as well. I did for my Vostro. That is the same copy as the hidden on-disk version, and it's bootable. You boot up, go into new install, wipe the drive, then proceed.
[Not sure what you meant about not being able to format your dvd to use a startup disc.]
Philip_Yip
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March 21st, 2009 08:00
Before Proceeding back up all data on a USB Flash disc/ External Hard drive. Insert your Vista Disc. Power down your computer and Press F12 at the dell BIOS screen.
Use the down key to navigate to boot from cd/dvd and press enter. When the vista disc loads, go through with the install untill you end up with a screen like this, you will have more partitions:
Single click on the C: Partition and then click drive options. Select format leave the rest alone.
Then follow the install through. After vista is installed (download these and save them on a usb flash drive), Install in this order:
Service Pack 1: http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B0C7136D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en
Note service pack 1 may be included on your disc, so just ignore it if it is.
Drivers here: http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=&SystemID=STUDIO1536
Start with Dell Notebook software under system utilities, then the chipset, then AMD video drivers then the communications, then network (leave bluetooth till the end). Then the audio, input device drivers (note adding your service tag into the drivers and download page will help you alot don't post it on thhe forums though).
Note do not install the BIOs or firmware updates for the cd/dvd if these install wrong they may break the device.