I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop that came with Windows Vista on it. I want to remove Vista from it and install Windows 7. However, if something goes wrong (such as the drivers not working), will Dell Factory Image Restore (which should revert the computer back to its original factory state, which would be Vista with all the drivers install) still work after I install Windows 7?
The laptop, in short, sucks. It only has 1 GB of RAM and a 100 GB harddrive. I don't think it's possible to run a successful virtual machine on it.
Not any driver in particular, but I'm more worried that ANYTHING could go wrong... a bit paranoid, yes. But I always follow an "expect the worst" motto, and I'm afraid that if something goes wrong with the installation I'll have nothing to fall back on. I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor program just now, and it said my drivers wouldn't have any problems.
I'm not talking about the recovery DVD's but about the Dell Factory Image Restore that takes it's information from the (D Recovery partition. That partition is only 3.92 GB big... so I'm not sure if it can restore everything after I remove it with an entirely new OS. Edit: Though I suppose the actual installation DVD for a Windows operating system is about 2.32 GB for a 32-bit computer, and the extra stuff would be for the useless junk bundled in with the computer (free trials for every program known to man)... so maybe it does make sense for it to be about only 4 GB large?
Just don't format the D: drive!! then that should be fine! to be honest if it works with vista it will work with Win 7...... most drivers for vista work in win 7 anyway. Edit: If you want true belt and braces do a complete system backup onto an external drive and you can back up both partitions, you could be back where you started!! And yes My dell restore partition is only 4gb ish !!!
Yes, leave Partition 1,2 and use Partition 3, i have no idea what the 2 2GB partitions are!!! did you create those? Yes format partition 3 when you install it may create another 100mb partition! this is normal so don't worry!!
I didn't create those partitions, they were always there. I'm just going to leave them, since I don't want to risk anything, and they're not that large of partitions anyway.
Yep it won't do any harm leaving them there! best of luck........ I think you'll find it alot more responsive than vista! as i find vista needs at leat 2gb ram to run reasonably and 4gb to run properley!!!!
Hey, you do realize that most likely if you install win7 you will not be able to use the recovery partition anymore right?
Even I have a Dell. Inspiron 1545. I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate x86 currently though it came with Windows Vista Home Premium x86 pre-installed. I just installed 7 over Vista (using the "Upgrade" option) and it worked like a charm! All my programs, settings, etc. were working perfectly and so were the drivers. P.S. - I uninstalled the pre-installed Vista when I got my laptop because it had unnecessary bloatware from Dell installed. So I clean formatted my disk, made a partition for myself, let the recovery partition stay where it was, and installed a clean image of Vista (which I had downloaded from the net at that time since Windows 7 wasn't out by then). When 7 released, I just upgraded my Windows to 7! And all was well. You can probably try doing the same. It should work flawlessly. P.P.S. - I'm now going to do away with the recovery partition since I have all my backups in place and I want to use that 15 gigs of space for my use, not the recovery since it will recover Vista in my laptop, which I don't want.
If you mean "use" as in "access", then you're mistaken. I can still access mine after installing 7. And if you mean "using it for recovery", I have a doubt. I think it should work, though I'm not sure (please correct me if I'm wrong!). And even if it does, it will restore the Vista image onto the laptop, not 7. So it'll be useless afterwards.
Although not required, when you install a new hard drive on a dell laptop, you normally would have to use a dvd disc that prepares the new drive. It's called Media Direct 3.X dvd. It prepares the drive and creates the 2gb partition. It would also install a software that gives functionality to the media direct button. note : Sometimes the media direct button when pressed, can corrupt the MBR if you do not install media direct prior to installing windows.