Step by Step restoring of XPS 1530 to factory settings

Hi All,

Could some good techie please kindly mention the step by step method of restoring Dell XPS 1530 notebook back to factory settings ?

Could this setting be done at home or should it be done by an expert Dell representative ?

How to back up all the driver info and various programs info(not the actual drivers or programs,just the info about which were installed before restoration) ?

What precautions need to be taken while restoring ?

What are the risks involved ?

Thanks in Advance,

H.S.Brar

 

u just erase your OS partition and reflash using the recovery partition... thats all...

u need to back up your documents, write down a list of all the programs u've installed... (if u dont want to do that, u may want to try system restore, but the best is a fresh install)

risks-> (a lot of) time and maybe some experimenting when something goes wrong...

heres a hint: if you hate to do this every 6 months.... then

1) back up everything to an external... install using a Vista DVD, partition ur hard drive into two: (OS - 50GB, USER Partition- rest)
2) install your OS, drivers, programs, update Windows, all the stuff that you need
3) Get a backup software like Acronis True Home.... 'save' the OS partition to your external.... so next time u need to reinstall, u just need to apply this clone(it'll take about 2 hours for acronis to copy everything.... but its all automated and u just need to click start to do it).... everything will be there, u just need to apply windows update and maybe a few other applications that u've installed after doing the clone

 

Hi Paper wastage,

Thanks for your help .

I have some queries :

1)How to reflash from recovery partition which is E drive in my case ?

2)I have C,D,E drive partitions on my HDD which were done at the Dell factory .In my case drive E is entitled "Recovery" .When I reflash from E will D also get effected or only C will be re installed ?

3)By erasing you mean to format drive C ?Again same question if one drive ie C is formated will it effect other drives D and E also ?

4) Of the 2 methods mentioned I think the first one of reflashing from Recovery partition will be better .Since the second method takes 2 hours how much average time will the first method take place ?

5)I think there is some way to save all the program "names" but I dont remember how .

6)Is it possible to back up documents and important files in drive D or E or not ?

By the way my Dell laptop was delivered in the first week of April in 2008 so it is more than 6 months and the restoration is due I think.

Regards