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    New Dell laptop (1210) crisis!

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by HyperionX, Jun 20, 2007.

  1. HyperionX

    HyperionX Notebook Consultant

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    Well, everything works, just to let you know.

    However after fiddling with Vista, I decided, I think I'll go to XP.

    So I went and put my XP Pro CD into it and rebooted, and booted from CD.

    I went downstairs for dinner and came up, to my horror, that Windows XP has installed itself on the laptop. Which was strange, as I didn't confirm ANYTHING. Normally as anyone who's reinstalled Windows would know, you can go through and select which partitions to keep and delete. Mine didn't stop there, it just went straight through.

    In initial panic, I rebooted my laptop and then went through the very same process again, sitting through it. Indeed there was no countdown timers and it all just went through, I didn't have to do ANYTHING. I got to the screen where it wants me (this is "in windows" or during the setup of it, not in the DOS like screen) to accept the license. I declined and rebooted. Upon rebooting, I now have 2 Windows XP Professionals installed. No Vista though.

    I selected the "top 1" and went through with it. Got into Windows XP fine, and am using it with no problems. I decided to shut down. Popped into Media Direct, worked 100% fine too, to my surprise.

    I got back into Windows and went to disk management. All 4 partitions are there. Hidden, Media Direct, OS, Recovery.

    Question now is, I feel rather silly. I wanted a fresh install, which I got, but I'm also left with a crap load of files still in C:\Programs Files\

    NOTE: My Windows XP Profressional disk is a -slightly- modified version of the disk (some logos were replaced by Alienware logos) from my old laptop. But everything else is the same. It's kinda like an OEM CD I guess, but it surely doesn't seem like one. It only installs Windows XP and replaces a few logos as far as I've noticed.

    I have looked through that thread/sticky extentively and can not find someone with someone who has a similar problem as me. I was wondering if anyone can offer advice/help as to how I can do a fresh clean install on a fresh partition given my situation. I guess my RECOVERY partition is now obsolete as it is not in the boot menu anymore.

    What I initally was going to do was to delete partitions OS and Recovery, make a OS partition with about 20gb and then dedicate the rest to whatever, and then was going to ask if Media Direct will still work like that. But now, it doesn't seem so easy. I'd appreciate anyone's words or advice.