Inspiron 1440: Need help in clean install and partitioning of windows 7

Hi Friends,

I have just bought Inspiron 1440. My configuration is - Intel T6600, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 3GB DDR2 RAM, 320 GB Hard Disk and 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330.

Further I have also taken 1 Year Complete Cover Accidental Damage Protection plan.

I am thinking of doing a clean install of windows7 on the machine with two key objectives:
- Although the Dell Inspiron doesnot come with a lot of bloatware still it has few programs which I dont require.
- Partitioning of the C Drive

During the initial stages of formatting process I noticed that there is also a RECOVERY partition (approx 4GB) from Dell present on the drive. This raised a few queries (mentoned below) and I need advice on the same:

- Should I do clean install? What all benefits it will provide?
- Can I create partitions without clean install?
- If I do clean install, can I keep the RECOVERY partition and will it work if required?
- If I do a clean install, will my 1 year Complete Cover agreement with Dell get nullified? Will Dell support create any issues while providing service?

I request someone who has done the clean install of win7 on inspiron14 to suggest the best possible path to take. Thanks.

Regards.

 

I purchased my Inspiron 14 a couple of days after Xmas. The first thing I did was wipe the drive and do a clean reinstall. The benefits of a clean install include a much leaner, quicker system. For example, my out of the box system had over 80 processes running just sitting at the desktop. After a clean install the number of processes dropped to 30. Boot times were cut almost in half.

Can you create partitions without a clean install? Sure, the Disk Management tool in Win7 will allow you to carve up the drive however you want without reinstalling but you will be limited to creating partitions with whatever free space you have.

I wouldn't worry about the recovery partition. The Inspiron should have shipped with all software on DVDs. If you need to install something it should be on the included DVDs.

Your complete cover agreement shouldn't have anything to do with whether you partition the disk or not.

 

Hi fdisker,

Thank you for your reply and suggestions. I guess I will go ahead and format the drive. Anyways I have taken the disk image of the system using Acronis so if something goes bad I will have the backup option ready.

Thanks again for your help.

Regards.

 

Hi fdisker,

Can you share some insight on the format process followed by you for doing a clean install on your inspiron system. Do I need to take care of any special steps like AHCI driver or some othe driver backups etc.. Is there some link which provides the steps for clean install on a Dell laptop?

Thanks again for your help.

Regards.

 

I was going to put together a step by step tutorial but there are several really good ones already out there. This one on about.com is excellent. I did a couple of things different but if you follow it you'll get great results. If you decide to do it pay close attention to steps 10 through 15 in part 1. They detail removing existing partitions and creating one single large partition.

Windows 7 ships with native AHCI drivers so there's no need to install anything third party during the install. In fact, my system was completely up to date with the latest drivers after my first visit to Windows Update after the install.

 

I have the Best Buy model of the 1440 but for this thread it doesn't really matter. Here's what I did:
1. Made a recovery USB flash drive with the Dell DataSafe software already installed. Then I can always return it to factory state fast and easy.
2. Booted from Win7 Ultimate 64-bit disk and clean-installed (deleted ALL partitions during the install by using the "advanced disk options" window so the whole drive was unallocated space). Then just hit "next" and away you go.

Actually, the recovery partition is about 15GB and there is another (Dell Tools) partition there too. But you don't need either of them. Your setup may have been different though, since Best Buy models are configured just for them.

Anyway, like fdisker said, all drivers were installed by Windows and everything worked after the install. I went to the Dell website and downloaded the touchpad driver (Alps, on my machine) and the Dell Quickset utility which handles the hotkeys and the on-screen displays when you increase or decrease volume or brightness or turn the wi-fi on or off with the top-row keys.

The touchpad driver is good to have if you want to disable the touchpad automatically when a mouse is plugged in. (I always use a mouse.) Being able to disable the touchpad is important to me for typing so I don't have the cursor jumping all over the place when my palms hit the touchpad while typing.

 

Hello fdisker and raydabruce,

Thank you for your detailed comments and guidance. This will help me a lot during the actual formatting process, which I intend to do on this weekend.

raydabruce: I bought the laptop directly from Dell, but it has the same three partitions - base C drive, Recovery partition and diagnostics partition. So I can use the same steps. I plan to follow your suggestion of backing up the data using Dell DataSafe software.

Best regards.

 

To put the recovery software on a USB Flash drive, you'll need one that is at least 4GB. Actually, 4GB might not be big enough. I used an 8GB one. But it works great. I can restore it to factory in about 12 minutes by booting from the flash drive. And unlike a lot of other recovery programs, it re-creates the recovery partition and utility partition -- so, it truly is back to how it was when it first came out of the box. It's the best recovery program I've ever seen and I've had about 20 laptops.

Another way to wipe out all your partitions before installing is to boot the computer from a Linux LiveCD like Ubuntu 9.10 and then run the included partitioning software. You can wipe out all your partitions that way and then boot from your Windows 7 disk and it will automatically install to the unallocated drive (no partitions) and create one partition for the whole disk. The Ubuntu LiveCD is free and can be burned to a single CD. The download is an .iso (image file) and must be burned as such. I think Windows 7 now comes with image-burning software but I always use the free "ImageBurn" software. Works great.

 

Hi Raydabruce,

Thank you for your suggestions. I have a 250 GB external Hard drive which I will be using for the back-up process. Since you have already gone through the process, it would be really helpful to me if you could share some broad level steps on how to use the software and how to go about the process.

Thanks again in advance for your time.

Best regards.

 

You're asking about backing up and I was talking about recovery options. I haven't done any backups. I keep copies of all my files on flash drives and memory cards.

I cloned the original hard drive to an external USB hard drive (320GB) and then swapped the drives. (My external hard drive is in an enclosure that allows you to put any laptop hard drive in it.)

Acronis True Image is good for cloning or backups. If either of your hard drives is a Seagate, you can download and use Seagate DiscWizard which is actually a version of Acronis that will only run if one of the drives is a Seagate. My original 1440 hard drive is a Western Digital but the 320GB is a Seagate.

If you just want to do backups to an external hard drive, you can use the backup function built into Windows 7. It works fairly well.

 

Agreed. The included backup/restore/imaging product in Windows 7 isn't as feature rich as Acronis but I find it gets the job done.

>> If either of your hard drives is a Seagate, you can download and use Seagate DiscWizard which is actually a version of Acronis that will only run if one of the drives is a Seagate.<<

Yup, Western Digital also has a special version of Acronis that works with their drives too. You can get it here.

 

I normally prefer WD hard drives but the 320GB Seagate was available at a reduced price at a local computer store and it's a 7200rpm drive with 16mb cache. The new drive and adding a matched pair of 2x2GB 800mhz ram modules boosted my benchmark scores and it's noticeably faster.

I'm really happy with the performance of this laptop for the price. I only wish it had a little better case and lid backing. It feels a bit flimsy and delicate so I treat it like a carton of eggs most of the time. But I still carry it around in my backback (left edge down, DVD drive up) and it's holding up very well -- I have a padded sleeve I put it in.

Ever see that commercial on TV for Windows 7 where this guy is holding his laptop with one hand by the corner? I cringe every time I see that.... it's an incredibly dumb thing to do. Unless your laptop case is made out of steel, you could crack the motherboard or flex the board to the point where connections and components are broken or disconnected and end up with a 5 lb paperweight.

 

Hello fdisker and raydabruce,

Thank you for your inputs. I was out of town with no access to internet so coud not reply earlier. I actually meant creation of image when I said about backing up.

Anyhow I attempted the reinstall of OS (Win 7) on my inspiron (1440). All things have gone smooth and I have successfully created partitions and installed the required software.

There is just one issue that I am facing - with respect to sound. I feel that the audio output (volume) of the laptop has decreased what it was originally. I have installed the IDT High Definition Audio Codec driver available on dell support site, but the sound output is not what it was. Any suggestions on what can be the problem?

Best regards.

 

Sorry, can't help. I'm using the default Win7 audio driver and I find the sound output satisfactory.

 

Thanks for reply. I will try a few more drivers, otgherwise will settle with what I have