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March 11th, 2015 23:00

How to restore a Dell Inspiron 1545 to factory settings without the disk?

 Hi, My name is Samyak Veera from U.S

I want to restore my Dell laptop to factory settings without the disk. People are telling to press F8 when I turn on my computer and go under repair  and such but every time I do that it says I need the disk so I have no idea how I can do this...Any ideas would be great thanks! Once again it's a Dell Inspiron 1545.


Thanks

Samyak Veera

9 Legend

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16K Posts

October 4th, 2015 12:00

Since you have the Dell Windows 7 Reinstallation DVD I recommend manual Clean Reinstallation.

If you have data on the hard drive, back it up onto an external hard drive using Linux:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/data-recovery-using-fedora/

Then use the Reinstallation DVD to wipe your drive, using Diskpart → Clean All:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/cleaning-up-a-drive-format-vs-secure-wipe-ssd-and-hdd/useofdiskpart/

After that Reinstall Windows 7 using the Dell Windows 7 Reinstallation DVD:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows-7/windows-7-installation/

Then you can install the drivers in the correct order:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/driver-installation/

The you may use Dell Backup and Recovery to make a new pseudo Recovery partition:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/dell-backup-and-recovery-1-9-0-22-windows-10-clean-install/

7 Technologist

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7.1K Posts

March 12th, 2015 04:00

Hi Samyak,

I would advise that you restore the computer to factory state and check for issue resolution. Please follow the steps in the link below to perform PC restore.

http://dell.to/15AKRrE

Please let me know if this helps.

9 Legend

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16K Posts

March 12th, 2015 05:00

First try to update to Dell Backup and Recovery and then make a Factory Backup (Bootable USB). The Rescue Disk (Bootable External Hard Drive) may not be able to boot with this system. See here:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/dell-backup-and-recovery/

October 3rd, 2015 12:00

I have vicious malware taking over my Dell Inspiron 1545.  I want to format the partition and bring things back to factory state.  I followed your instructions:  Used F8 to get Advanced Boot Options. Chose Repair Your Computer.  Waited for files to load.  Selected the keyboard.  Clicked Next. Logged in as Administrator.  But there was no option, or way to get to an option, to reformat the drive and restore to factory defaults.  The best I can do is perform a Windows 7 system restore to a prior restore point, which is not good enough.

I had before purchased from Dell a Windows 7 recovery disk, but that appears to be only for changing the settings of an already installed Windows 7.  Again, not a return to factory state.

I notice there is a recovery partition on the hard drive. And I presume I can restore to factory state from there but I can't seem to get to it.


I notice also an option listed in Repair Your Computer to reinstate a formerly made system image.  But there is no such image available.  When I get the system clean again I want to make such an image but I can't find how to do that.

Can you help me out?  Thanks in advance

October 5th, 2015 04:00

Thanks so much, Natakuc4, for your excellent reply!!  That appears to be everything I asked for.


As soon as I get a chance I will try what you advise.

(Incidentally, I hadn't known about http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com, which seems to have so much on it.  Thanks again.)

9 Legend

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16K Posts

October 5th, 2015 14:00

As soon as I get a chance I will try what you advise.

(Incidentally, I hadn't known about http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com, which seems to have so much on it.  Thanks again.)

Glad you are finding my guides helpful. :)

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