Why reinstall Vista? And how dual-boot XP?

Not having one of the new Dells here - why does Vista take up all 4 primary partitions? One for the Dell Media thingy, which I have no clue if I need... but what uses the other 3?

And also: why is a reinstallation of Vista recommended when you get your new machine (bloatware or what...?)? And if I wanted to dual-boot XP and Vista... how, when all the primary partitions are used? In other words, could I reinstall Vista on less than 3/4 partitions to make room for XP too...?

 

Not a clue what uses the other three partitions in Vista. Perhaps the drive is pre-partitioned so that you can put all your media stuff on another drive so if you reinstall you don't lose it all?...

As to the reinstall, bloatware is the most common reason to do it when you get your new machine. You get rid of the preinstalled crap, and can determine what you really need on your machine. You'll be able to dual-boot XP and Vista with no problem (you'll probably need to edit your partition table, though). Just install XP first, then when you install Vista, it's bootloader will automatically make a menu where you can choose whether to start XP or Vista.

In all honesty though, I wouldn't recommend installing Vista. It's a complete piece of garbage. Stick with XP. If you want a second OS, go with linux.

 

EDIT-> As a side note, the 1520 comes with 4 primary partitions on the HD and that is the limit for primary partitions...hence why XP is dificult to install with Vista's inbuilt partitioning software.

I had little luck installing a dual boot with XP using Vista's inbuilt partition tools. I'm not the biggest fan of vista and prefer XP for my 3d modelling and game tools, so I just deleted that 2gig dell media direct partition, merged it back into my c: drive (to get my total partitions down to 3) and then split the c: drive in half to use half for Vista and the other half for XP. This however destroys the pre-boot functionality of dell media direct: i.e being able to play dvd's, music etc without turning your laptop on. This is no big loss to me as my pc is always on anyway and media player does me fine.

Be warned that not all the XP drivers are at Dell's website though. I had to go hunting for the video card driver and the sound driver. I'm currently running a few un-official benchmarks to determine the performance diference with games between Vista and XP on the 1520. Another warning is that my first try at the bootloader section of this tutorial failed -> http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about88231.html

I followed the boot menu section to a tee, but I guess having an inspiron full of partitions changes things a little. To cut a long story short, the boot loader wouldn't work when i selected XP, only the Vista selection would work. So, a repair install later and I have my XP back again. I'm about to try a diferent boot loader method. Fingers crossed.

The 4 partitions are 10gig for the recovery partition, 2 gig for the dell media direct boot partition, 78mb partition for (EISA configuration - dell utilities) and the 4th partition is your actual c: drive.

I'm probably going to go down the route of formatting the drive and installing XP first and then dual booting Vista after that. Less complications.

 

kysterama, could you point me to the audio drivers for xp? I can't find any that work.

 

Thanks so much johnstonvt and kysterama. Hmm food for thought. So if i ever wanted XP on there, I'd really *have* to put on from a fresh complete installation, before Vista? I couldn't easily install XP too later? Tricky decisions, as messing with the bootloader sounds scary.

That four partitions thing seems crazy.. waaa.

If i want to reinstall Vista on a smaller partition, in order to allow as much space as possible for other OSs, how big would you recommend I made the Vista partition for future growth? Counting an average to heavy installation of programs (Office etc. etc.) but no data (music, movies on other partitions)? I think I had only 12GB for XP and I continually ran into trouble. 30GB too small for Vista? As high as 50GB?

 

I think depends how much you REALLY want those instant-on dvd and music players.... After that, the choice is simple... partition the harddrive into 2, a c drive for your OS, and a d drive for everything else... That way you can re-install your c drive whenever you need to.

I'd likely just use XP as Vista is a serious resource hog and feels slower than XP anyways...

 

Yeah.. i do want the Dell media stuff. You're saying I don't need the partition for EISA configuration - dell utilities?

Anyway, question still remains: sensible long-term minimum for Vista if media (mp3s etc) is elsewhere? 30GB?

 

question guys

i have a vista CD - does dell provide you with a windows vista cd-key? that way i wont have to use dell's restoration CD but my own. or can you install from the dell restoration CD without the bloatware?

thanks

 

If you had 120gb to work with, how big would you make your OS partition?

I've usually gone with only 1 partition and kept at least 50% free space, I find that keeps the system from bogging down.

 

well it really depends what you want to install - if its just vista with one or 2 games and you know you wont be installing any more 40 gigs is plenty of room

but if you are doing photoshop and have tons of stuff install you' ll need more on the primary drive.

for example - for me i do have photoshop (well the whole CS3) installed plus office 2007 and warcraft. those alone i will need about 10 gigs of space. add civ IV and im assuming 3-4 more games at 2-5 gigs each (which i think is sort of normal nowadays) - i 've noticed that as long as i keep my storage (videos/pics/music/docs etc) on a separate drive - i only need about 50 gigs (so that''s be about 60 gigs before partition) - i like to cushion it about 20 gigs to be safe - and just delete stuff i dont use anymore. you'd be surprise at how little room you really need as long as you have some kind of storage for all you crap that 'are not programs.

so to answer to your question if I had 120 gigs - i'd go 60/60 - 60 gigs is plenty of room for storage for teh average users - and just have an external drive for anything. also remember - the dells (well my 1720 soon to arrive) all have 8 in one memory readers - so an 8 gig SD card is like 80 bucks on newegg. so that's nice portable storage too - and one you can transfer to different PC's.

 

I've had a 120GB HDD on my desktop for 3 years now. I keep my computer clean and neatly organized, and have never used more than about 60GB of it total, including backed up installers for every imaginable program, most of which I don't use, along with media, etc.

Just don't load a bunch of junk on your computer, keep it CLEAN.

 

Right... but you're answering someone who is living within 10GB for XP - and constantly cleaning. I have huge amounts of data, which I keep separately and I'd love to allocated as much as I can to it on my new laptop. So 60GB for the OS+programs alone is a huge leap! I was naively thinking 20GB (twice what I currently use!) might do me for Vista, but I guess from what I'm reading, I'm woefully wrong

 

After reading this and other threads on this forum, I wonder if I have come to the correct conclusion of dual booting:

1. To delete everything on your new dell
2. Install XP
3. Install Dual Boot software (what is the of the software do u guys recommend?)
4. Install Vista from the cd that follows with the new dell

Does this sounds correct?

 

I found this article on dual-booting XP and Vista. I'll try it out when I get my laptop.
Install Windows XP in a Dual Boot with Pre-installed Windows Vista

 

Hello! In post #3 user kysterama says that this way dual-booting didnt help him...

 

Just a question on the Recovery Partition- Can I just erase it and merge it with the C drive? Doesn't the laptop come with Vista installation discs so I can just erase everything and partition the drive how I want and reinstall Vista?

 

Oh my bad! I didn't even realize that he posted the same link that I did.

 

Actually I did get that link working guys. It was a small fault on my part that it failed at the time. Check out the thread here where I've gone into full detail of how I installed dual boot XP which includes links to all the drivers I used ->

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2167865#post2167865

 

After retinstalling Vista, do dell provide all related vista drivers necessary? on a separate CD/DVD or what?

 

No they do not. Most of the XP drivers for the 1520 are on the dell support page except for video card, sound and wifi. There are alternative drivers though listed in my above link. I also packaged up all the drivers I used for XP in one bundle and uploaded it to filefront for your convenience. Link for that is also in the above link.

 

Mr. Kysterama, you are the man! Thank you for your reply here and thank you for giving me and other people help with drivers and tips!

"Smile to the world and the world will smile back" =)

 

"amdxp" and you got an intel/nvidia? not hating just wondering lol.

 

No problem, glad to help Its forums like these that have got me through many dilemmas in the past so I don't mind giving a little back. In hindsight, I would have deleted my recovery partition instead of my dell media direct partition though. If I have to ever recover my pc, I'll do it my way, not Dells. Thats the only thing I would have changed in my entire dual booting debacle, lol.

 

Hehe! Nice one man!

If you have seen the matrix trilogy, you will probably catch this one:

"Look beyond the flesh"

I got the AMDXP nick many years ago when AMD was leading over Intel and my father worked for AMD... So there u have it b0r =)

 

I just reinstalled Vista on the 1520.

Anybody know what the base system device drivers are?