m1210 reformat

I just got a m1210 from costco, i unistalled a bunch of crap but theres still like 55 processes running. I want to do a reformat, so I'm wondering if anyone out there with a m1210 has done a reformat and if there are any driver problems. Dell didnt give any restore disks, is there some sort of built in restore on the laptop or do i have to provide my own xp cd, i'd like to still retain the media center capabilities. thanks for any help.

 

You have to call dell and request the XP disc and other discs. There is a restore partition on your HDD but it will return your laptop to factory condition and becomes inactive after you reformat.

Please read the sticky about formatting (link in sig). It gives you all of the information that you need.

 

I just read that, what i was mostly referring to was after the reformat, specifically for 1210 users, were there any hardware items that come up as unknown in the device manager or drivers that dell deosn't include?(someone in another thread mentioned missing drivers for the webcam)
i just want to make sure i have my bases covered as far as drivers before i do it. thanks.

 

support.dell.com should have all of your drivers for your system. Any hardware that does not have drivers on that site uses the XP standard drivers. As for the webcam, I know there was a lot of discussion about the link/file being corrupted, but supposedly it is fixed now.

 

XP Disc, driver and apps disc, Cineplayer if you want it, Anti-virus software disc. Thats all I used in my reinstall. Every hardware item was there when done with those and I had 0 unknowns or errors.

 

I just tried (unsuccessfully) to reinstall from scratch from the media that Dell provided. I've gotten everything to work but Bluetooth and the integrated camera (I verified that these both worked before I tried to do a clean install) I installed the drivers for the camera and the bluetooth on the website, but the system doesn't seem to think that they are "plugged in." I have a bunch of problem USB Root Hubs in System Configuraton that are probably related to the problem. Any help would be appreciated

fakebanana
[email protected]
XPS m1210 1.83 core duo

 

Get your own xp disk and reformat

 

I reinstalled WinXP Pro on my m1210 earlier this week w/o any problems whatsoever...although I had to do it twice as there's some kinda whacko problem w/ WinXP Pro & Daemon Tools that caused me to have to do the whole thing over...

 

I also did the reinstall from scratch using the XP cd that came with my system. The Driver cd (also came with mine) does not have the camera driver and I needed to download it from dell website. I would recommend downloading all the drivers from dell website since some of the drivers on the cd are old. Also, I found out that there are some applications that are on the cd but not available online.

 

I had the same problem too with Daemon tools. For some reason, when I installed Daemon, mine does not boot up anymore (just blank screen after the XP logo). I had to do XP reinstall this morning. I guess we can't use Daemon Tools on 1210.

 

Well, I tried again, this time making sure to install the drivers in the order recommended in SouthernGirl's reformat and reinstall on Dell's guide, and everything installed just fine.

 

Mother of pearls!!! I have the EXACT same thing and I even called up Dell and got an exchange and the exchange was doing the same thing! I had no idea why seeing how I installed Microsoft updates and antivirus first thing! Looks like its the d@mn Daemon tools!!!

I'm wondering, does it do all the Windows loading thing with the moving dot thing then it goes to a black screen and stop there? Also, does it do this on random - as in, windows loads perfectly fine sometimes and other times freezes up?

As it seems like Daemon Tools is the culprit here, the conflict exists between the M1210 and the program. The problem is still the same whether it be Windows XP Pro, XP Pro SP2, XP Home, etc (as I have tried ALL OF THEM).

 

its version 4 that gives problems, i got the black screen with version 4. I installed version 3 and it works fine.

 

I am having the same USB/Bluetooth problem. The driver CD and device manager do not recognize the BT hardware as being installed. I did a "complete" wipe of the drive and these are the only 2 problems I am having, although I haven't tried to repair media direct either.

Could it be that we reloaded the drivers in the wrong order? I followed the dell reccomendations on driver reload so I would think not, but I dunno. Help!

 

Just as long as you have everything installed, the driver order really doesn't matter.

On the BT, try unpluggin your BT chip and plugging it back in. Sometimes you have to unplug the hardware in order to get it recognize.

As for the webcam, make sure to download the drivers from Dell's site and have to manually tell it to update the driver. Here is more info on it: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=xps_port_genhdw&message.id=3935

On the USB root hub, make sure that you have updated XP. USB ports use the XP drivers, so you might need to tell it to update the driver too.

 

Thanks for the quick reply SG! It came down to installing the Notebook System Software first and then the chipset. It worked like a charm! BT and the USB are working smoothly. Now to tackle MediaDirect!

Thanks again!

 

Interesting. I didn't think installing NSS first would matter, but guess it does. MD repair should be easy. All of the info is in the format guide.