Hard Drive Swap Between Latitude 6510 and 6320

I decided to use the existing 160 G on the new 6320. It worked. I put the hard drive and the Win 7 DVD on the DVD drive. It boots and picked up all drivers except the Intel WiFi Link - which I have to download from the Dell site.

The three buttons beneath the track point isn't working. I think I need to re-install the Dell application.

Now - for the new HD, I'm installing 64 bit Win 7 Pro...

 

Licensing-wise, that's incorrect:
- This isn't a retail box or VL where you can transfer licenses to different PCs. OEM licenses are non-transferable.
- You can't use a Windows 7 HP on a Windows 7 Pro and vice versa. It's supposed to match the COA on the chassis.

Technically, it might work or it might not, keeping in mind that the mass storage drivers should be changed back to Microsoft to avoid invalid boot device errors and the Windows software license in the BIOS might not match and invalidate the install.

 

So I will be re-imaging the 6510 using 64 bit Windows 7. Dell provided the Win7 64 bit disk but no "driver disk". There are a few disks for applications like Power DVD and Webcam Central.

It seems that I need to download all drivers from Dell website?

 

Dell should provide the Drivers & Applications disc. Worst case is visiting the Support site and downloading the appropriate drivers.

 

That's what I thought. But my 6510 was bought 1 year ago so I could have lost the driver disk. However, the 6320 I got two days ago only came with the Windows 7 disk. I was a bit shocked. Anyway, all signs point to the return of 6320.

 

There's no point of including a Drivers and Applications disk since drivers are frequently updated, quickly making hard copies outdated. I've never used any of those disks, and it's really quite wasteful how many disks we've tossed out over the years.

If you plan on reinstalling Windows, you should know how to locate, extract, and install drivers, otherwise reinstalling may be too much to handle.

 

I agree it's a waste, but the disk can be handy in a few situations:
1. no internet or low-speed internet (ex: if no wired connection is available or the network card drivers are required to make the NIC work correctly),
2. extension to #1, all the *correct* drivers are there, helping you avoid those special situations where there were several different types of cards and the driver package downloaded or posted was the wrong one,
3. point of reference for a functional system (since these are Dell-tested and approved versions of drivers, though technically the latest Dell drivers ought to work).

But otherwise, yeah, you always want to get the latest from the Dell support site.