A few questions about Reformatting.

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone would be so kind enough as to answer a few questions about reformatting my Machine.

It's currently a Dell XPS M1530. As soon as I recive it, I am planning on reformatting due to all the bloatware. I have read the guide on how to do it. The only problem is I am confused on some things.

First, according to this thread, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3393892#post3393892

I dont need the AHCI drivers at all when installing vista, as they will install automaticly. Although the removing bloatware guide says that's not the case, and i do need to the AHCI drivers before I continue with a format.

Which of these is the correct answer?

I also searched dell websites to download this driver, and could not find it, although I belive it's the "Intel - Driver
Applies to:
Matrix Storage Manager - Notebooks
"
Correct?

Also, if I do need this driver is it safe to put on a disc during installation then a flash drive, as I currently dont have one.


I would be so grateful if anyone could answer these question for me, and one also please.

It states if I would like to partition, or format with windows xp, I would need the AHCI driver, as windows XP does not support SATA. Now during a switch from XP to vista how would I go about getting the AHCI Driver in there? Is there a option during install for drivers, with XP as there is in vista?

One more quick question please. Is it possible to partition Vista, and install XP on that partition? If so, am I going to need to AHCI driver also?


Thank you all very much for the help. Thank you also in advance for the time you will take reviewing this message.

 

If your gonna install Vista 32bit, you dont need anything. Just straightaway instal it.

 

It is not recommended that you install Vista and XP on the same partition.

Edit: Wow, I didn't see all your questions

These are the correct AHCI drivers you are looking for

It has to be a floppy disk. It would take some work to get Xp setup to recognize the drivers if you tried to use a flashdrive during XP Setup.

You will not need seperate AHCI drivers if you decide to switch to Vista from XP.

 

Thank you guys for all the help. It's very much appreciated. So if I have this right, I can go ahead and Reformat as soon as I get my laptop, following the Dell Bloatware removal guide, althouogh I WONT need the AHCI drivers from the website as it will auto install at the time of the vista install? Thank you.

 

Has anyone had the problem with the Insprion 1525 where it sometimes when online goes black and shuts down. I have Vista.

 

Just as a small FYI to top it off so you are aware....

- The XPS M1530 really doesn't contain as much bloatware as you might think as I found my M1530 to be pretty clean and the folders that could be deleted, were very obvious in the C drive and were mostly drivers and such.

- If you plan to use Mediadirect, keep in mind that when you first get your laptop, your Mediadirect partition will be 2.5GB. If you choose to reinstall mediadirect following the instructions to reformat, that partition will become 3.0GB, you can try to resize the partition using a different program, but it WILL screw up your mediadirect rendering it useless.

- Keep in mind that the Recovery D drive contains all the files to bring your PC back to factory settings. You will want to back it up to CD.

- Though initially your C drive has 220 total disk space and your D drive is a total of 9.99GB, after performing steps, your C drive will be shorter and have a max of 207GB if you choose option 1. If you choose option 2, the max you can specify for your C drive is 207GB as well. You CAN resize it through Disk Management under Windows Vista to 220 again, but if you choose to bring back the D partition, it will only have 9.5GB due to the Mediadirect partition taking 500MB more as mentioned earlier that cannot be changed without causing boot errors and mediadirect to not work.

- Though many say reformatting will increase your speed, it is not always true. When I reformatted my drive and installed all the default drivers, startup time DECREASED by 5 seconds compared to my laptop that I did not reformat. (I had 2 M1530s, I only reformatted on one of them). Installation of SP1 also further slowed it down by an additional 4 seconds.

Hope it helps.

 

Reformatting isn't for the faint of heart. But if you have another way to get only or a well informed friend that you can bribe, then I would say it is a good learning experience. For a geek that is.

 

Reformatting can be easily done by everyone, but the thing is if you care a lot about certain details like losing certain partitions, etc and other stuff aforementioned, then it may not be the best thing. For me, reformatting turned out to slow down the system despite the fact I had done multiple different methods including the one posted in the reformatting thread.

It just isn't for me. But like I said, for those that don't worry about particular details, then its really not a difficult thing to do.

 

If you do it properly and get all the correct drivers and clean everything up afterwards, how can a reformat possibly slow it down?

It doesn't make sense.

Surely you must have deleted something that accelerates the startup or you did something else to make it even slower.

 

Thanks for the help everyone. I think i'll just stick with not touching anything when my laptop arrives, that is besides removing the little bloatware. If anything, I would reformat to Windows XP, just because I know how to use it better. Although from what I read, being a not so-advanced computer user. (I can hold my own on most things, although i've never played around with reformating)

Formatting to XP may not be the best choice, and it seems like alot of work.

So i'm stuck on the fence for now.

Thanks again everyone for the help.

 

Is this true?

 

Yes and no. You MIGHT get a BSOD. For me when I tried reformatting without the drivers, it was fine. Just to be safe, still download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and when you get to the Vista install step, stick in the USB with the driver files extracted onto it and click on "Load Driver" after you click "Custom Install", then continue and you will be 100% fine.