need help restoring OS for Inspiron 8600

I have an Inspiron 8600 from about 5 or 6 years ago. It came with XP, and gradually I've upgraded it to SP2. I tried upgrading it to SP3 but it wouldn't let me do it, saying it was "not allowed by policy".

Anyway I'm not using the machine anymore so I thought I would restore the OS to its original state and then do the upgrades again from there.

Step one was to use Dell System Restore, but I couldn't get it to work. First does anyone know when Dell started doing this and if my machine should have it, and second is there an easy way for me to tell if the hidden partition is there. I looked in the hard drive manager but it didn't show a partition that looked large enough to contain a disk image. This machine has been mine since new and I never deleted or otherwise affected the hidden partition.

 

Do you have the system reinstallation disk that came with the system? You should reinstall the OS, especially after using it for so many years. If you've lost the disk, you can request another one here:

https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form

 

As far as I can tell it did not come with any disks. I still have the box and other papers that it came with. I thought the reason was because they came with the disk image in a hidden partition. My daughter has a newer Inspiron and hers had this. After a few years when she got her OS corrupted I restored it for her. It was an easy process.

 

I don't think they used the restore partition on older systems, as older systems all came with a restore disk. Do you have Windows XP reinstall disks from other Dell computers? The quickest way would be to find or borrow one, but if you can't get one, you can order one from Dell for free.

 

Well I was wondering if I could install XP from a plain XP install disk, then download the drivers from the internet. Is it too much trouble to get all of the right drivers downloaded and installed?

 

As long as your XP disk is the same flavor as your XP CoA (Home, Pro, MCE), everything should work fine. It won't be any more trouble than using the Dell CD (at least not in the sense that you still have to load all the additional drivers), but you may have to call up to activate the install.

 

What is the best procedure for doing a full install and then downloading drivers?

Will Windows retrieve any of the drivers on its own? Is there a way to automate the whole procedure, or do you just go to Dell's site and search for them one by one?

On this same machine I did download and install a newer driver for the wifi card a few years ago. I looked up the hardware model # in the Windows device manager, then searched Dell's site for newer driver. So I suppose I could do this same thing for all of the drivers.

 

If you go to http://support.dell.com and go to Drivers, you can enter in your service tag and they'll show you a list of drivers that are specific to your system. That should reduce the amount of hunting you need to do.

Windows Update might push a few drivers out to you, but don't count on that. They don't always push everything.