Thinking of Reformating a new Dell?

Hello everyone.

Alot of customers don't know this, but many of the new Dells come with a built in image in a FAT32 partition that can be accessed by pressing CTRL-F11 on the DELL screen at startup. This process takes approx. 7 minutes to complete and would restore your PC back to factory settings after wiping out your hard drive and installing a new OS image, along with most of the apps that came pre-installed on your system.

Some who know about this don't go this route because of the bloatware. This is deff. an acceptable option however, be warned. Once you reformat using an OS CD, the partition will be corrupt and you will never be able to access that image (Well, maybe if you play around with the partition table [Not Recommended]). So if you're ever going for an OS reformat/reinstall to get rid of the bloatware, might as well delete the FAT32 partition as it's useless now and just taking up space.

Good luck!

 

Good to know, having a restore CD isn't a whole lot of value then. Any idea on what the size of that image is?

 

i thot the image partition only gets jacked up if you actually delete and create/format partition(s) over that space?

back when i was a sysadmin on numerous dell poweredge servers, all we had to do was make sure not to touch the image partition and we were good to go. we could reinstall OS from an OS cd as many times as we wanted with no harm to the image partition.

 

The image partition is anywhere from 3 to 6 gigs large, depending on youe system.

If you do not delete any partition what so ever, the image will continue to work, however, if you create a new partition or even delete any existing partition (such as when you wish to reformat your PC, you have to DELETE the NTFS partition, and..) the image will stop working.

 

i see. must be a new feature. back then, we could delete, resize, modify, and/or create as many partitions as we wanted as long as we left the image partition alone.

 

wait.. so you could do this instead of reformatting the other way with the backup CD and all that?

 

all this will do will restore your pc to factory condition....meaning it will have all of the junk software. The whole point to reformatting is get rid of the Junk.

 

The other way of reformatting is the best way. Doing it this way leaves registry keys and bloatware behind which takes up the most space i believe and is just better to do the reformat. My 2 cents.

 

okee dokee, i'm gonna call Dell tonight and ask them to send me a backup CD

 

I think you should have gotten one already? For all the applications and a Windows Xp cd? Yeah, call them and ask for one. Might be $10 though. See i got my computer 1 1/2 years ago and back then, dell gave me all the cd's free but its diff now. Good luck with calling dell too.

 

For Inspiron users, Dell stop sending the CDs back in February. Apparently in July, they stop putting the burning CD program on the laptops. The only way you can get the CD is either to order a backup OS disk when you purchase your system or call Dell and request it.

Warning: calling dell might take some patience and time, not to mention a few phone calls. They supposedly have a policy stating that they won't send the CDs by request anymore, but then again, some users have been able to request the CD on the first try.

SG

 

I got my CD's on the first try, no problem. I requested them Sunday night and I got 'em today (Tuesday).

 

I would just say....Listen hear Dell Rep, I just bought this computer and I want to take the crappy junk you add on it to slow it down. I demand a disk to reformat windows...NOW!.......................But, thats just me

 

Well I ordered the extra OS backup for $10. I don't know if they would just send it to you if you didn't order it. I only had to request the Sonic CD and the Cyberlink.

 

what does Cyberlink do?

 

Cyberlink plays DVD's.
My nb came with the OS cd, thankfully...I would say its required rather then a backup.
Thanks for the heads up Dell Tech, thats a big chunk of my HD.

 

You should be able to request the software cds without any problems. From what I heard, Dell is pretty nice with the software. With the XP CD, they prefer you to order a backup when your order your system.

Like I23 said, cyberlink plays DVDs. I've tried other decoders, and none of them worked as good on my Dell system as Cyberlink did. Sonic is the burning software for files.

SG

 

I got my cd's yesterday (they take longer to get to my part of the UK) will be formatting tonight.

Last night i thought id go into Task Manager just to check out how many processes were running. My jaw nearly hit the floor.... 59! All i had open since i booted up was Excel and IE, definate need of some bloatware zapping!!

 

What would be the best method of cleaning out the unwanted junk when recieving a new laptop? Reformat and install a fresh copy of Windows XP entierly? OR, go into Add Remove Programs and just delete delete delete? Now I read of a hiden OS Image (or something) on the HD. I hope cleaning out the machine and having it run smoothly won't be too difficult.

 

I reformatted my 6000D yesterday. My HD has 40GB and Dell partition was taking up about 4MB. I deleted all the partitons (including the one with windows), so that they all convert to unpartitioned space and then partitioned it the way I wanted. Now it boots up fast and I don't have to deal with all the annoying trial software pop ups.

 

It is a lot better to do a reformat because:
When you do add/ remove programs, it leaves behind registry keys and bloatware. When you reformat, it swaps the whole system clean and free. A lot better than Add/ Remove. From what i hear too, even though you add/remove, it still operates around the same speed.

 

the whole point of reformatting is to get rid of the junk dell added including the junk on that restore partition, using that partition simply puts all the bloatware back on your system.
By using the backup cd, you dont have this problem, I burned a copy when I got my 9300 and also requested one from dell, afterall I paid 119 dollars for windows xp, I dam well ought to get a backup cd lol, Anyhow, no bloatware, no dell crapware and best of all, the drivers needed were on the backup CD and yes, when reformatting, delete those extra partitions dell put on the hard drive.

 

n00b question: how do you reformat and partition with Windows?
I only know how to do it using Linux...

 

There is a big sticky on this, just look at the first to stickys in this forum.

 

So is this dell guy wrong in saying that restoring corrupts the computer?