Wiping out Dell partitions

678 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by hiiyah777, Nov 10, 2008

Jazino

Discussion Starter · Nov 10, 2008

I want to use a clean install of Vista on my Dell XPS M1330. It has three partitions for OS, Recovery and Media Direct.

I have a Vista lite disc and want to use that and install drivers that I need but I would also like to be able to return it to factory specs later on if I need to or want to sell it.

Can I put the recovery partition and media direct partition back on if I erase them? I have all the original discs as it is basically new with everything from Dell.

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Oz-Sco

· #2 · Nov 10, 2008

If you have the disc's to re-install these partitions i don't see why not. I have a Dell and removed mediaDirect, since i never used it, still got the disc, did read a forum post at the time saying there was no problem re-installing it. As for recovery partition i never had that on my Dell, just regular OS disc, so can't really help with that one.
Maybe you'd find an answer on the dell community forum?

cheers Oz

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Jazino

Discussion Starter · #3 · Nov 10, 2008

dell community forum is probably a good idea. i just dont like signing up fro crap i am going to use once. i will give it a look though as the answer may already be there.

if anyone else does know thanks in advance.

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ProjecT TimeZ

· #4 · Nov 10, 2008

Yes you can reinstall over it, and there is a setting in all Dell's (you have to press a certain button during the boot screen, for my laptop it's F8), and that'll allow you to put it back to factory settings with all the partitions and everything.

Hope it helped

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Oz-Sco

· #5 · Nov 10, 2008

Dell community seems to be down! but i found this link which answers your questions

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=88032

cheers Oz

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hiiyah777

· #6 · Nov 10, 2008

I'm not aure about that link, but I can speak from personal experience:

My wife has that exact same laptop, and I reformatted the partitions. Big mistake. Luckily it was still under warranty, though. I wound up getting a replacement hard drive that had the factory image on it.

The issue that kept popping up was that it needed some information off of that factory image in the partition that basically "verified" that it was the same computer and that it was indeed a Dell. At least, that's the best I could gather.

I tried many different things before finally resolving to call Dell and ask them for their [free] help.

My recommendation would be to either:

(A) Leave those two partitions intact (you might be able to delete the Media Center partition without any issues) and just load the new OS onto the main portion, then tell your computer to boot from your new install.

or

(B) Invest in a second hard drive and just try a clean install on it. It takes a 2.5" SATA drive. That way you could get the max space from the drive, use your own OS installation disc, and still maintain the original disk to return your system to its original settings.

Hope that helps. If you need further clarification of what I was trying to say, just let me know.

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