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Inspiron 6400 reinstallation drives and partitions
I bought an Inspiron 6400 laptop last week and loaded some games onto it. I then bought a new version of one of the games which required me to uninstall the old one, which I did. However when I tried to install the new version it said the old one was still there.
I tried a system restore, but there was no previous restore date available, so I tried to wipe everything back to factory settings by reinstalling windows Vista. This only resulted in a partitioning of the disc and a second version of Vista.
I then tried restoring to factory backup according to KB article 316056, but selecting Repair Your Computer only gave me three Safe Mode options and Start Windows Normally. There were no language or Dell Factory Image Restore options available as per the article.
In addition to all this I do not understand the use of the two hard drives. There is no mention of these in the User Manual. On the original version of Windows, just called Windows Vista on bootup, the C Drive is called the OS Drive and contains 11 folders or files called: Dell, Doctemp, Drivers, Intel, Program Files, MDT, Music, Sierra, Users, Windows and Bootsect.bak.The D Drive is called the Recovery Drive and contains the following 7 folders/files: Dell, Program Files, Sources, Tools, Users, Windows and Windows.old. Under the second version of Windows, called Microsoft Windows Vista, the Drives are reversed but otherwise contain the same folders/files.
I have now tried Uninstalling Windows Vista on a multiboot system from the support website notes, using the prompt C:\Windows\system32> e:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force, which it reported as successful. This required me to reinstall windows again after hitting F12 and removed the original Windows Vista option, but not the first Microsoft Windows Vista option, on bootup afterwards. It also added a new windows.old file to the C Drive (where I reinstalled windows from the CD) but did not appear to remove any old files. Thus I still have two bootup options, both called Microsoft Windows Vista, no free space on the recovery drive and not much on the OS drive.
How do these drives work together? Should I have Windows on both of them? Is the partition something different within one or both of these drives? How many of my 4 copies of Windows should I be trying to delete and, most important, how do I now get back to the factory setup (there are no documents I want to keep)?
I tried a system restore, but there was no previous restore date available, so I tried to wipe everything back to factory settings by reinstalling windows Vista. This only resulted in a partitioning of the disc and a second version of Vista.
I then tried restoring to factory backup according to KB article 316056, but selecting Repair Your Computer only gave me three Safe Mode options and Start Windows Normally. There were no language or Dell Factory Image Restore options available as per the article.
In addition to all this I do not understand the use of the two hard drives. There is no mention of these in the User Manual. On the original version of Windows, just called Windows Vista on bootup, the C Drive is called the OS Drive and contains 11 folders or files called: Dell, Doctemp, Drivers, Intel, Program Files, MDT, Music, Sierra, Users, Windows and Bootsect.bak.The D Drive is called the Recovery Drive and contains the following 7 folders/files: Dell, Program Files, Sources, Tools, Users, Windows and Windows.old. Under the second version of Windows, called Microsoft Windows Vista, the Drives are reversed but otherwise contain the same folders/files.
I have now tried Uninstalling Windows Vista on a multiboot system from the support website notes, using the prompt C:\Windows\system32> e:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force, which it reported as successful. This required me to reinstall windows again after hitting F12 and removed the original Windows Vista option, but not the first Microsoft Windows Vista option, on bootup afterwards. It also added a new windows.old file to the C Drive (where I reinstalled windows from the CD) but did not appear to remove any old files. Thus I still have two bootup options, both called Microsoft Windows Vista, no free space on the recovery drive and not much on the OS drive.
How do these drives work together? Should I have Windows on both of them? Is the partition something different within one or both of these drives? How many of my 4 copies of Windows should I be trying to delete and, most important, how do I now get back to the factory setup (there are no documents I want to keep)?
- I don't know articles but to get to the screen you were at you must of been pushing f8. I belive to boot from dvd you have to push f12. The 2 harddrives is really one but when you added/reinstalled the second vista. when you put the dvd in. it i believe told you that windows already exsited and you couldn't put them on the same drive/partition. what you need to do is reinstall windows and check and see how many partitions you have windows normally is on the first and what you need to do is hit.....i think on the right bottom something about other options and reformat that drive. I don't know how vist and media direct partitions, but don't delete the small partitions less then i think 6gig.and then renstall the drivers and that should work. I really belive the second partition should be deleted also because that should hold the second install of vista but without mor info i can't tell you
- OK - that was probably it - so lets explore other options. What happens if I reformat one of the drives (say the OS drive) and delete the remaining windows.old file on the other (Recovery) drive? Will the system then still boot up using the new windows on the recovery drive, and will it no longer give me different Windows boot options? Or should I do it the other way round? Is the Recovery drive just for back-ups? John.
- Ok honestly I don't know what the recovery drive. I say no do no delete that patition. I don't have that partition I did a fresh install when i got my 9400. I googled about the recovery partion and it said to push control+f11 when the computer starts and that i suppose to restore the drive to factory spec. Have you tried that yet. It also said if you resized the partition it might have had broke the link to that partition. if that is the case the is a way to restore that. Try that and tell me if the control+f11 lets you in
penguinspenguin
362 Posts
321
0
Posted April 13th, 2007 12:00
Ctrl-F11 doesn't work in Vista, use http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=298A2E89689E13C2E040A68F5B280AA4&cs= to restore your factory image when "Repair My Computer" is not accessible from the F8 menu.- Many thanks, Penguin, that worked fine apart from one thing - only the C(OS)Drive was restored - the D(Recovery)drive remains unaltered and 98% full, including the windows.old file. Can I just delete the windows.old file (it wouldn't allow me to do this - perhaps I have to remove User Account Control?), or is there more to be done? John
- Follow the procedure in this article to remove windows.old (yes - it's safe to delete as long as you are sure that you will have no further need for it).
penguinspenguin
362 Posts
78
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Posted April 14th, 2007 22:00
Since it will have been something you put on there, search the whole drive and sort by date. Then, anything created after you starting using your computer is most likely stuff you can delete. Post the filenames here and we can probably tell you what's safe to delete.Don't delete PCRestore, imagex, or factory.wim
JohnEPZ
5 Posts
321
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Posted April 12th, 2007 15:00