Dell XPS L501X Format issue

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has formatted their l501x so it didnt have all the dell crud that comes with it, if you have let me know how you did it and what you left out. I used the dell resource cd but when it detects my system it only ticks like 3 drivers and i dont know which ones i need to be installing other than the main things i paid for. also could you check my service tag and tell me what ones i need? and dont need!! "service tag: 7282tn1"

Btw im formatting it cause i swapped out the hdd for an ssd. Any and all help is appreciated.

cheers

 

awesome . i know im a newb but all these views and noone knows how to help. lol

 

You could just create recovery media and install them on the SSD. Frankly Dell has some of the least bloatware while HP/Compaq and Acer/Gateway/eMachines have some of the worst bloatware.

Just go to support.dell.com and punch in the service tag and head towards drivers/downloads to get the relevant ones.

 

i cant create backup media cause i already formatted it, and im not sure (like i said) what drivers to download.

 

Well you shouldn't have wiped the recovery partition.

Unfortunately the Dell configuration page is a mess to decipher. The best thing to do is to go to Device Manager and under the unknown devices, right click and click properties, details tab and go to hardware ID's

Go to pcidatabase.com and type the 4 digit VEN and DEV into the appropriate fields and download the right drivers.

 

awesome dude cheers !

 

i wanted to ask this question, but as the OP found out .. if this forum smells a noob, they steer clear, so i didn't.. but now that he did:

ok so dell's got the least bloatware.. but what about cleanin out that little amount of bloatware? i kinda wanted to do the same thing, but am a bit noobish and need a walk-thru or at least an outline of what my goal is.

 

yes answer this man please i hate the amount of start up apps and even if you disable them they make copies of themselves...

 

That's not always true, I do my best to answer whatever tech questions pop up on these Dell forums. Most Dells come with is essential software, basic AV (usually Mcaffe but sometimes Trend Micro and Norton now), and most of the stuff you will use, (they preinstall Flash, Adobe reader, free software you would be installing anyway), though I haven't bought a consumer model recently for personal use, I do work with consumer models at work. The older Dells had alot of bloatware and I think they got so many complaints that the new ones hardly have anything on 'em. My Latitudes only had trial AV which I removed but I have not uninstalled anything else because it didn't need uninstalling. If it bothers you that much do a clean install BUT leave your recovery partition in tact.

You can try CCleaner or PC Decrapifier, just make sure you create recovery media FIRST as removing stuff will decrease the success of making recovery media (not joking).

 

I had to uninstall about 20 or so programs of crappy bloatware when I got the system.

It had Bing Bar, eBay and all sorts of other crap.

It was ridiculous.

I put an SSD in and loaded fresh anyway. All I did was go to the Dell website, put in my service tag and grab the drivers I needed. Works fine.

 

do you think anyone on here could burn me some discs of the recovery partition and send it to me, assuming its all the same image. Does anyone have recovery discs or know of a way i can restore that factory partition?

 

Well I've bought 2 business oriented notebooks from Dell recently, they didn't have any bloatware on them. I've also used plenty of consumer grade and they didn't really have that bad bloatware. Perhaps XPS is just loaded with bloatware lol.

Someone else's recovery media isn't going to work with your setup UNLESS they pretty much have the same setup as you (wifi card, bluetooth, GPU)

 

ok so how do i restore the recovery partition.. do i install everything the way it was then create it? I've seen plenty of ppl on this forum with the exact same setup as me so im sure if they were nice enough.....

 

Unfortunately once you've wiped it out you cannot restore the recovery partition. If your hard drive goes bad, Dell might ship you a pre-imaged drive but to tech shops it's quite rare they have an image.

Theoretically, (minus CPU/GPU/RAM) if they have the same components it should work, there are no guarantees.