Reinstalling Windows 7 on Vostro 3500

Just got a 3500 and want to reinstall with 64 bit Windows 7.
Anything I should backup before I go ahead?

 

I spent the day yesterday doing just this. I take it there's nothing personal of yours on the 3500 so I wouldn't back up anything (except maybe your activation info, see here, though I activated mine through the diy activation in windows with no problems).

I suggest you download the bare minimum of drivers from dell, and don't forget the latest bios.

Good luck !

 

Nah there's nothing on it at all that I need to keep, I wouldn't imagine the using abr would work if I'm going from 32 bit to 64 bit? Think I'll just activate inside windows never had a problem doing that before.
I've already updated the bios and I have all the 64 bit drivers, so will go ahead and do it later.

Cheers.

 

I've gone through the process three times now since june, three different laptops, and I can't say I enjoy it. It usually takes me a whole day and by the time I get to the make-an-image-of-everything-before-I-break-something stage I'm exhausted.

It doesn't help that windows 7 takes *forever* to install.

Still, having a nice clean system is worth the effort.

 

Win7 installs faster than previous versions... plus the hardware is faster, the restarts are faster, and the updates are smaller/faster.

GK

 

I don't mind doing it, as you say you end up with a clean system so worth while doing.
Also I have nothing to copy on the laptop as it's not mine, and just a handful of programs to install, so shouldn't take that long.

 

Some things to lesson the pain are:

1) Go to: Dell Service Tag Lookup Fill in the laptops service tag and select drivers home on the left
2) You can take advantage of the Dell Download manager to download the drivers in bulk (I don't use this too often at work as Id rather not install things on to image PCs) Your mileage my vary
3) Download these on another PC while your doing Win7 install will cut down your total time

 

Yer cheers pal, I already had the drivers ready before hand, the service tag, 1 doesn't work at the moment, guess it hasn't been added to the site and 2, doesn't it only list the drivers that were installed when it was shipped? if so then they would be no good anyway as I installed 64 bit instead of the preinstalled 32 bit.
Took a couple of hours I reckon to go from preinstalled dell windows, to clean 64 bit windows, had to phone up the activation too, but that was easy enough, installed the drivers and all updates in that time too so wasn't that bad.

 

Dell.com support will list downloads by service tag and OS, OR by model number and OS. Then there can be tabbed lists for 'some' and 'all' downloads. I believe you will find that no listing is exactly for your build... downloads for optional components are present. And sometimes you may only find a needed download on the 'all results' listing. Ultimately, you must determine what you need, find it, and download it.

GK

 

Oh right, I only said the because when I put the service tag in from my 1500 vostro apart from the chipset and an audio driver, which there's two of each, everything else would be for mine.

I've done it now anyway, just downloaded the 64 bit Windows 7 drivers, so done and done.