Dell Vista Laptop Reformat and Bloatware Removal Guide

5300 service? Is this something for your cell phone? I'm not clear on what this is, sorry.

 

No what I mean was the Intel Proset Utility which when installed appears in the control panel to let you set up your laptop so other can connect to it like a regular wireless router and share internet connection from there..

 

HI, i do all the steps you say to install media direct, i am installing media direct 3.5 but when it comes to 4% or 8% it says installation errors, and i can't do anything. I already formated like 20 times, and i giving up. Any ideas

 

Hello all,

I had a company recently try to install XP Pro & Microsoft Office 2003 on my Vista Ultimate machine, Studio XPS 16. Unfortunately they tanked it. Apparently it will not even turn on anymore. If I remember correctly the words the Tech used is "it will not post anymore".They have stated that they cannot do anything more for me and I should send it back to Dell to have it repaired or get a new one. To be honest I am not sure if this is all under warrenty or not. I have a couple of questions.

1. Is there anyway I can maybe take my resource data disc that was provided with my laptop, along with my Vista Ultimate and try to restore it myself. Is that even possible when something won't post? I'm not even sure what "not posting" is.

2. Does anyone have any ideas on what I could do to get my machine running again. Too be honest I'm not even sure what questions I should be asking.

Any help would be greatly appreciative.

 

The motherboard was fried when a Computer Tech was installing the A06 Bios that is required for an XP downgrade. It appears the downgrade didn't take and I will need a new motherboard. They tried to restore it, but nothing would post.

 

I used the guide and every thing went smooth with the Vista sp2 installation on a new HD. Now I would like to upgrade to Win 7 with a new HD. My question is will the process be the same for Win 7 upgrade or has any one done it so far. Thanks.

 

The process is very similar. The fundamentals are the same:

• Backup ALL your data
• Install the Operating System
• Install drivers (Vista drivers work on W7)

If you want to do an upgrade to Windows 7 (as opposed to a clean install), then no personal data will be deleted. Also, you won't need to reinstall a bunch of drivers. I still recommend backing up everything just in case though.

 

Hi there,

I just got a new Studio XPS with Vista 32bit, but would like to clean install a Windows 7 64bit in the future. I don't have Media Direct, so I just have to install Windows 7 and than the drivers? Should I use my drivers & utilities disk, or I can find newer version of everything at Dell support?

Thanks.

 

If you don't plan on installing MediaDirect, then yes you just need to pop in the Windows 7 disk and install that.

I would use the drivers from Dell Support. Vista drivers work just fine in Windows 7, so make sure you download the Vista 64-bit drivers if you plan on installing Windows 7 64-bit.

If you can't find the drivers you need on the Dell Support site, Windows 7 does a good job at finding drivers for you through Windows Update. I would use those as a last resort.

 

Hey guys,

My notebook's been noticeably sluggish the past few months and I plan to reformat and run a clean installation on it. I posted a thread in the XPS sub-forums but hope to get more answers here...

Here are my questions:

1. What particular bloatware from the XPS m1530 will be removed after reformatting? I would like to know which particular software was considered "bloatware" upon receiving my XPS on factory settings. Actually, I'd want to keep most of the pre-installed programs Dell gave (like Roxio Creator, Microsoft Works, and the Dell Utilities) so if these are considered bloatware, I would want to find a way to retain them.

2. How exactly do I go about installing the AHCI driver? Someone clarified that I should expand the .zip file. How do I get it from my Drivers and Utilities disk? Or is it better/easier to get it from the Dell Website, and would that be a more updated version?

3. I have two Dell Drivers and Utilities CDs; one Black One (which i think is the main one), and another Blue One (For reinstalling Dell Webcam Manager). When do I insert the Blue CD for Drivers and Utilities? Do I run that during "Dell Resource Application"? Or do I insert the Blue disc after successfully installing Vista and all the drivers?

4. Is it better to have 2 or 3 Disk partitions on the HD? Right now I have 220GB on the OS C: and 9.99GB on the RECOVERY D: and I wish to retain those settings. Is it possible for me to do so and how?

Sorry for the many questions as this is the first time I am running a clean installation and don't want to mess things up.

Hope to get some insightful replies and suggestions...

Thanks!

-Dave

 

I used this guide with no issues when I first got my 1530. After owning it for a couple years it's gotten sluggish so I've been attempting to start from scratch, but I'm stuck on number 3 on your list.

I boot from the MediaDirect disc, choose option 1, then press "Y", then any key to continue...
At this point the computer reboots, then gives me nothing but a black screen with a blinking cursor. What gives?
Repeated attempts have not resolved the issue!

 

Did MediaDirect say that it successfully deleted all partitions and created a new one?

 

Just kept trying until it finally "took". Thanks though!

 

Cool, well I guess that works as well

 

is it possible to format c: and reinstall windows & drivers from the Recovery Partition, without using recovery DVDs?

 

Hello,

I'm really new and not very tech-smart so please be patient with me.

I have a new dell studio 1555 and I've followed this guide and it's worked perfectly so thank you fou putting the information out there.

The only problem is that I have been unable to download the drivers for the bluetooth. What do I do?

Also in device manager, there is a device that is called Base System Device and it has a yellow triangle. I've tried searching for it but I haven't found anything. How do I resolve this?

EDIT: On the dell drivers and download support website, under CD/DVD, there are a couple of items available for download but I don't if they are relevant to me. I have already used my drivers disc and I've selected some drivers from the website, but I was unsure about this.

EDIT2: Do I need to download any of the items listed under SATA drives on the drivers and downloads page?

Does it matter that I didn't download the synaptics touchpad off the drivers and download website?

Do I need to re-install Power DVD DX?

I apologise for all the questions.

Thank you

 

Can anyone help, please?

 

Bump to find you.. Ive been unstickied with a half a million reads!!!!!!! Arhhhhh. eheheheheh

 

Sorry, I thought they would keep your guide stickied as well...

 

Booo, sticky this guide again! I am reformatting my 1530 and had to look for this tonight.

 

Hi,

I have a problem with dell mediadirect 3.5 on my vista pc. Basically a while back I had to use the dell factory restore option. Ever since dell media direct hard boot does not work as it should do. If I try and hard boot all it does is display the splash screen momentarily and then continue loading vista. When Vista loads in dell media direct then launches from within windows. Is there any possible way to restore dell media direct hard boot functionality without resorting to the drastic measure of completely reinstalling windows. It has taken me weeks to return the laptop to it's former state. I do have everything important backed up but just going through re-installations of all the software is a bit of a nightmare. There must be a way of fixing the boot record or something like that.

Thanks in advance,
Wayne

 

Hmm I'm not sure. Since MediaDirect resides on its own partition, it may not be repairable without using the whole re-format procedure. Have you tried putting in the MediaDirect disk while in Vista to see if there is a repair option?

 

hi guys had a question yesterday i had a strange virus enter my laptop like bunch of pop ups were opening and my laptop was restarting by itself after every couple of minutes. anyways so what i did that i had a recovery disk like vista 32 bit so i reinstall that when i came to the partion window i formated my recovery drive and my primary c drive so everything got cleaned which is good. now my question was did i do that correct ? because i didn't had media disk so i couldn't follow les guide in the first 3 steps. also my question is ahci driver i don't know anything about that. so i installed the windows now i have brand new windows vista with fully formated. so how do i check if i have ahci installed and what is it anyways is there any advantage of having it ? or what is disadvantage. thank for all ur help fta gurus.

 

AHCI will get you somewhere around a 12-20% power increase from your system. Pretty much every system uses AHCI nowadays.

You can check by going into your control panel/device manager/IDE ATA?ATAPI Controllers and see if AHCI is listed.

 

hi thanks for the response. here is what is listed under IDE ATA?ATAPI CONTROLLERS
- ATA CHANNEL 0
- ATA CHANNEL 1
- ATA CHANNEL 4
- ATA CHANNEL 5
- Standard AHCI 1.0 SERIEAL ATA CONTROLLER

is that mean i have Ahci or not? sorry i am just being a complete nooby but i just wanna figure it out that i did it correctly. also one more thing after the reinstall of my windows my laptop apperance is not looking as sharaper as it was before like its kinda blury blury in device manager i have three things that are with yellow pipe
-sm bus controller
-video controller
-standard vga graphic adapter.

i don't know if the bluryness is because of those three things with yellow pipe. thanks for all ur help again. hoping for reply thanks

 

Yes...you can probably find and install your video update through the Windows update and u need to find out what drivers are missing.

I am going to guess the chipset controller and video driver.

 

also i wanted to add that i also did the vista tweaks.

 

hi les i installed all the windows update but still i have those yellow pipes beside these following categories.

-sm bus controller
-video controller
-standard vga graphic adapter.

any idea what to do on this thanks

 

Nope....What is your system. All of the drivers will be available from your manufacturers site. You just have to find the right one. I havent your system so I dont know the manufacturer or GPU in your system.

 

hi les i have dell laptop of inspiron 1525 i think
intel core 2 duo t6400@ 2.00ghz

 

Yes...u should be able to pull up all the drivers u need from the dell site...Its simply trial and error from here.

 

hi there, i tried your way to re install my vista os, but in the part where am suposse to install (hard drive), it shows "no drivers were found", tryied to reload them, re scan, and do all the nonsense that dell wants you to do , but no luck, can u help me, mine is inspiron 1721 laptop, vista home, i do have the vista cd and i formated the drive because is not booting to windows anymore, i just have the black screen,please help,

 

So I went to install windows 7 , and it extracted correctly, and went to reboot. However, upon rebooting, it sticks at the "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD....". If I press a key it does the windows 7 install over again, if I don't press a key it stays at that screen forever. I tried re-doing the pre-install part again but it got stuck upon the first reboot, again.

 

This thread is long and old, but it still seems like the best place to post this request for help. I have an XPS 1530. The HDD just went out so I am attempting a clean install on a new hard drive. My problem is that my my system won't boot the Media Direct or Vista disc from the dvd rom. I get a "no bootable device" error message.

 

Have you adjusted the boot sequence in your Bios setup? Your optical drive should be on #1 of the list.

Michael

 

Can you follow these steps to install windows 7 ultimate instead of reinstalling vista home premium? I have had profound problems reinstalling vista so instead of using the dell disk, I used a retail version. I formated the drive without media direct and then installed vista on the whole partition. The reason: you can't reinstall vista from the restore partition anyway so why bother having the logical partition. In other words, what is the point if it is useless.

I have found from time to time, especially with vista, that due to the amount of use my 1720 gets, the hd needs to be cleaned out. This is because I can't solve the indexing problem which has at times slowed it down to a snails pace. Therefore I wipe the hd clean with disk scrubber making sure I go over it 3 times to be sure there is no dell junk left on the drive. Sounds cruel to dell but dell has been cruel to me and others. I don't like their proprietary software either. If you know what you are doing, one can do better elsewhere. But having said that, the reinstallation process can get tricky in vista and hanging up is a big problem.

I am currently using win 7 and like it so far. There are a few glitches but I am sure that will be cleared up as time goes by. Dell wants you to use the vista drivers when installing win 7. There are no new drivers except the wlan driver that comes with win 7. I tried both and don't see any difference in wireless speed. More later on that.

 

ok so i have this inspiron 1510 from dell and i have this stupid virus in my laptop so i plan to reinstall the vista from scratch . so should i follow this guide and will it help remove all the junk and virus that is on my laptop? thanks for ur hellp guys

can anybody help me please i really wanna do this right now when i am free. thanks again for all ur help


if any experts don't mind helping please help i am requesting. thanks