I Give up: reformatting

my new notebook e1505 looks great cosmedically, there is almost no light leakage at all, and i dont see any "shimmer" effect..

BUT.. the constant 50+ processes running at a time is killing me. im not accustomed to more than 30 at a time...

SO... im reformatting. I Called Dell up and they are sending me a Drivers CD.

I have a few questions.

- I should be able to just pop in the windows XP CD and reformat right?
- The CD will have all updated drivers?
- Can I get a step-by-step guide on the whole process?

 

Everything you need to know is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=42340 courtesy of Southerngirl.

 

Is there a step by step guide for windows MCE?

 

Not specifically, but the process is similar. I would offer one 'note' about the Dell MCE reinstall... Following one of the several reboots, you will be presented a 'dramatic' WARNING!!!! screen. Do NOT stop this process. Although it is not overtly explained, the DVD is installing Microsoft MCE SP2 rollup to your computer.

Mark

 

You should receive two CDs [minimum]; One which is a DVD for reinstalling the Microsoft OS and a separate Dell Applications and Utilities CD [aka Resource CD] which will have the necessary drivers.

SG's guide will get you thru the rest....

Mark

ps I highly recommend you do NOT delete the Dell Utility [~40MB] partition when you reinstall.

 

when doing the fresh MCE install, is there a way to format the media center partitaton and create a new one or you cant since it is hidden

 

If you mean MediaDirect 2.0 in the newer Dells, then no it can't be formatted/recreated. It resides in a special 'reserved' space on the hard drive.

Mark

 

Is there a way to remove, for those dont need it?

 

Yes just delete the wee partition(40mb) when you reformat.

 

That can 'break' MediaDirect 2.0 function but not because the MediaDirect application/files is removed. For the newer Dells all the MediaDirect files are in a special 'reserved' space on the hard drive called a host-protected area.

I won't say it can't be accessed/deleted, but it takes some special software to do so....

fwiw

Mark

 

The most recent drivers are on Dell's website, I'd download from there instead of installing from disk, just to make sure. Also I reformatted my e1505 last week after receiving it, and windows update installed about 50 updates to my system at after the install. So definitely make that update a priority. Make sure you have a copy of the PowerDVD software and Sonic as well.

 

Why?

After I did a complete reinstall from a freshly formatted HD, I simply did a MediaDirect repair. MediaDirect then had no problem playing a DVD movie w/o my installing PowerDVD. I was surprised.

Hermit

 

Yes, MediaDirect has that functionality built in, but Windows doesn't have native DVD support, so you shouldn't be able to play DVDs in Windows without PowerDVD or a simliar program or codec.