format hard drive and re-install vista

Hi rjuzar, Your manual is HERE. The good news you can take your computer to factory state, Ie when you first got it out of the box. When you bootup and see the dell splash screen, Press F8, Click , Repair your computer, follow online instructions. Also see your manual first.

Driver install order for laptops and desktops:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/downloads/en/driver_install_order?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~lt=print

Thanks for the reply Robin. The link you sent is very useful. I cannot go in for a factory restore since I also have a rootkit virus infection which will not be cleared. Hence I have to go in for a total format of the drives. I searched but could not find any manual which specifies a formatting sequence to follow before the re-install. Would you know the steps to take for formatting the hard drive before the re-install?

Thanks again.

Are you serious about the computer being brand new? How did it get infected? If the computer is within the first few weeks of warranty, contact Dell Support. You should know that old anti virus software for XP sees Vista as a huge virus infection. Make sure you are not using any old XP utilities, including anti virus software.

yes, unfortunately I used a lot of torrent downloads and one of the movies I downloaded got my laptop! so lesson learn't .... torrents are BAD!

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 and or delete, you may want to delete all your partitions and then to do a format.

Then follow the install through and you can either use your driver disc or download the drivers from the dell website. make sure you install dell notebook software, then chipset then video first...

Hi I just have quick question of a similar matter:

I have XPS M1530 with seagate st9160821as HDD, I have formatted it under XP installation, and this deleted the partitions, drivers - everything,

I want to re-install Vista back on this HDD - however it fails to find the drivers during the install so the device is not shown in the window from previous post, my question:

-is there a way to put the stuff that was there before i formatted, ie the drivers, back on? if so can you please provide me with download link for this.

Much appreciated

Lukasz

ON THIS SCREEN: THE OPTION 'Load Driver' - where do I take the driver from? :-))

Possibily from here:

Hi

many thanks, I have found this already - i know what 'possibly' means, am waiting to find out as well - just backing up the HDD i have inside and will check, however as you noticed its a different model so not sure it will work.

what I'm after is an explanation in regards to how it works as well, so I could make sense out of it, for instance if you get brand new HDD how do you install fresh OS on it?

do you need a retail boxed product (OS) that might include more drivers in the package or can you do this with standard OEM included with the machine?,

basically I suspect that there are few apparent 'glitches' in the process but they are actually left out by MS to promote new OS's like Vista etc and 'by mistake' stopping people from going the XP route.

anyway just some thoughts, any feedback on this will be much appreciated.

Lukaszszszszsz