M1210 Clean Install of Vista Ultimate - Tips?

I have a M1210 with Vista Home Premium. I've tried twice now to do an upgrade to Ultimate with poor reesults and ends up have the software I use (primarily dev tools - SQL Server, VS, etc) need to be reinstalled. Plus I never have luck with the sound drivers, bluetooth, or webcam on upgrades.

I've decided to just flatten it with a clean full Vista Ultimate install.

What is the best proccess to do this so I can have a fully working system at the end of the day with sounder drivers, webcam, bluetooth, etc all functional as it came from Dell or better? Any time I try to just reinstall the Dell drivers after the upgrade I have poor results. Is there a full driver download or something that could help? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

PS - read through the sticky guide for a clean install, the main issue I see is that I have no drives disc.

 

Download all the current drivers, put them in a folder marked drivers in my documents....start pc with vista ultimate cd...choose the fresh install option....VISTA will move your current profile into a folder marked windows.old and put a fresh install on.

Install drivers from windows.old\profile\profile name\my documents\driver

 

Thanks. Can I not just download them after the fact ones the core Vista install is done?

 

you can, but I would at least download your network drivers just in case Vista does not have one included for your wireless card or network card

 

Ok thanks. I guess I'll try and clean install and see if that works. As is the webcam and sound are not working so may as well start over yet again.

 

I installed Windows then downloaded everything else from Dell's site. Had no problem at all