Replaced hard drive on N5010 - how do I get Windows 7 back on

Hi,

Welcome to our community.

Thank you for sharing the details. We did check the same, the error that you are receiving is due to the recovery discs. Please let us know the region you are located in, so that we can provide you with the Out of warranty departments contact number to purchase an OS media.

In regards to installing Windows 10, Inspiron N5110 is not compatible with Windows 10. The drivers for Windows 10 are not available for this system. Let us know if you have any queries for us. We'll be more than happy to assist you. We thank you for your cooperation.

Dell do not support Windows 10 however this model can run Windows 10 as Windows 10 will have pretty much all the drivers inbuilt or obtain them via Windows Update. It does require BIOS version A11 however. For more details on Downloading Windows 7 or Windows 10 installation media from Microsoft see my guides here:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/windows-oem-faqs-and-downloads/ 

Hi Philip,

I have a similar question about reinstalling Windows 7 Professional x64 and I was hoping that you could provide a little advice.

I bought a new Dell XPS 8700 in March, 2015.  Manufactured date is December, 2014.  It has the Intel i7-4790 CPU, so I assume it is the Haswell version (4th Generation).

The PC was preinstalled with Windows 7 Professional x64.  But, shortly after my purchase, I requested and received the Dell Reinstallation DVD - Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SP1).

I need to reinstall Windows 7 Pro on the XPS 8700, so I went to Dell's website to see if a newer, more up to date version of the Windows 7 Pro ISO (SP2, for example) might be availablle.  I input my Service Tag and their website indicated that nothing was available.

Since my XPS 8700 service tag didn't work, I tried using the service tag of my newer Dell Latitude PC and, voila, it worked.  It found the ISO (WGC5Y_2FR1DA00_W7SP1PRO64_ENG.iso) that was mentioned in your article about reinstalling Win7 on a Skylake system:   dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/.../.

I also read your article about slipstreaming Windows 7 installation media:  en.community.dell.com/.../19999620.

I want to reinstall Windows 7 Pro on my XPS 8700 and I want to keep Dell's original set-up of BIOS (Legacy Boot) and MBR; I'm not ready to convert to UEFI / GPT.

So, my questions are:

1.  Will the ISO for Skylake, that I downloaded from Dell, install correctly on my XPS 8700?

2.  Or, would it be better to slipstream my Win7 SP1 DVD to new installation media, so it's more up to date, as outlined in your slipstreaming article?

3.  My SSD is mSata and probably does not need NVMe support.  If I take the slipstreaming route, will the NVMe driver cause any harm?

Thanks.

Firstly if you are performing a Clean Install I would recommend using the UEFI Boot with GPT as it'll run slightly better and be a bit more reliable (Legacy ROMs Enabled, Secure Boot Disabled). You can of course install using a Legacy Boot but I don't advise it.

The Skylake .iso should work on your system fine. I would use it since you already have it to hand. Slipstreamed drivers not applicable to your hardware should be ignored during installation i.e. shouldn't influence the installation negatively if the hardware isn't present.

I would install the Convenience Rollup prequisite update post installation:

https://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/0/5D0821EB-A92D-4CA2-9020-EC41D56B074F/Windows6.1-KB3020369-x64.msu 

Then the Convenience Rollup:

http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/software/updt/2016/05/windows6.1-kb3125574-v4-x64_2dafb1d203c8964239af3048b5dd4b1264cd93b9.msu 

Then the April 2017 Security Rollup:

http://download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/secu/2017/04/windows6.1-kb4015549-x64_59cf25073f2e8615b01d9719a0a2e2a0a9a92937.msu 

Each update requires a restart.

Philip... Thanks for the advice.

Hi,

Install windows 7 or 8.1 on your computer and then upgrade it to windows 10.