Studio 15 restore issue

Hello All,

On my new Studio 15 with Vista Home Premium SP1, I tried to partition the HDD using Easues Partition Manager and it never worked. My system would just keep giving errors. Finally, I 'restored' the system using recovery DVD but its not yet completely restored.

I had ordered my system with 1440 x 900 resolution and max I can get is 1152 x 864. At many other places, I feel like its running on generic drivers and specific drivers are not installed.

Can anybody help me in figuring this out and how do I go ahead and install drivers for my components. There is one DVD with drivers and utilities. Do I go through this DVD for one by one components? or Dell provides any utility that will identify your hardware and install drivers for that? I just don't want to do something blindly and f*** up the system again.

Thanks in advance.

 

http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&fileid=292002

this is the video, all the rest are in here:
http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...stemID=STUDIO1537&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=

 

Thanks mate, You are a star.

I was so stressed out yesterday that I messed up machine in just 2 days, Hence couldn't find a thing on Dell website. My guess would be all these drivers are there on a CD/DVD that they sent me but I freaked out when I saw chipset drivers. I was like.. do I need to install motherboard drivers? what is that? so few questions..

1. Do I need to install all of these drivers one by one without even knowing (or with little knowledge of) what I installing? Will such action mess up machine even more?
2. I am located in Sweden but my OS is English with International/US keyboard. Since I selected 'locale' as Sweden while restoration, many programs go to Swedish language by default and sometimes have no option to change the language. Is there anyway that I could set this to English?
3. Is there any chance that I can slipstream drivers in the recovery DVD and make myself a new recovery DVD?
4. Now that Easues partition manager has failed upon me, is there any other freeware available that I could use to partition my drive? I have old copy of Partition Magic, I think version 7.0, any idea if it works on Vista?

Apologies if questions sound too weird or stupid or noobie but I am too scared to mess up my machine.

Thanks.

 

1. You should install the obvious ones such as for graphics, audio, wireless, ethernet. If you go to the Dell site it will show you which drivers are optional or recommended.

3. Yes you can use vlite to slipstream your install and make it so that you can restore it unattended.
4. You can use Gparted or the partition utility on the Vista disc.

 

Following is the reply I got from Dell customer support and I restored my machine successfully using first method, as my recovery partition was still intact.

**
Using recovery partition

How to factory-reset your system by using PC Restore.

Observe that all the data on the harddrive will be erased when you perform a PC Restore. Backup all important data before using this tool.
1. Start the computer.

2. Press <F8> on the keyboard during the startup process until you see the "Windows Advanced Options" menu on the screen.

3. Press the <Down Arrow> key to select "Repair Your Computer" and press <Enter>. The System Recovery Options window appears.

4. Select your language and click "Next".

5. Log in as a user with administrative rights and click "OK".

6. Choose Dell Factory Image Restore.The Dell Factory Image Restore window
appears.

7. Click Next.

8. Choose "Yes, reformat hard drive and restore system software to
factory condition".

9. Click "Next".

10. The factory software image is now written to your hard drive. Click "Finish" to restart the computer.

**

Using restore DVD (note this DVD doesn't contain any drivers and there is a certain sequence you have to install the drivers, otherwise it doesn't work)

WINDOWS VISTA INSTALLATION GUIDE
-------------------------------------------------

Observe that all the data on the harddrive will be erased when you perform a Vista installation. Backup all important data before starting the installation.

If your system is bought with the function "Dell Media Direct 3", start by preparing the system for the usage. You do as follows:

1: Start the computer and press <F12> when the Dellogo appears on the screen. Insert the Dell Media Direct media into the optical drive.

2: Choose to boot to "CD" and press <Enter>. Press any key on the keyboard to confirm your choice.

3: Choose <1> in order to make a single C-partition of all the available space on the hard drive.

4: Choose <Y> to approve that all data will be lost. Replace the Media Direct-CD with the Vista installation-DVD.

5: Now start the Vista installation. Remember to install the operating system on partition C:

If you have the DVD with system drivers (Resource DVD).

6: Start the Windows Vista installation.

7: When asked for the destination for the Vista installation, click on "Load drivers".

8: Insert the Dell Resource DVD, and install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver.

9: Insert the Windows Vista DVD and continue the installation.

If you don´t have the Resource DVD with drivers.

6: Go to Dell Drivers and Downloads web site and download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver.

7: Extract the file to a USB memory key, or extract them and burn them to a CD.

8: Start the Windows Vista installation.

9: When asked for the destination for the Vista installation, click on "Load drivers".

10: Plug in the USB memory key, or insert the CD, and install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver.

11: Continue the installation of Windows. If you have installed the drivers from CD, insert the Windows Vista DVD and continue the installation.

12: After the installation of the Microsoft® Windows Vista™ operating system, you must install the following drivers/ software packages. It´s important that they are installed in the following order. Reboot the system between installations.

Dell™ Notebook System Software
Intel® Mobile Chipset Driver
Mobile Intel® GMA X3100 Video Controller
Ricoh® Media Card Reader Driver
Intel Flash Cache Logic Chip (Intel Turbo Memory)
Marvell® Yukon 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Wireless driver (if applicable)
IDT® STAC 9205 Audio Driver
MDC driver
Dell Touch Pad Driver
Bluetooth® driver and stack

13: When the installation is finished, insert the Dell Media Direct CD in the optical drive. If it doesn´t autostart automatically you can start in manually from X:\DellKit\DellKit.exe

14: Press <Enter> to start the installation.

15: When the installation is finished, press <Enter> and remove the Dell Media Direct CD. Shut down the system and try to start it by pressing the Media Direct-button.
***

Hope this comes handy to someone else.