Dell E1505 MCE Reinstall question

[DeezWho]

Ive heard a lot of people complaining how hard it is to do a true clean install of Windows MCE on dell laptops.

I was wondering if simply reinstalling MCE on the OS partition without fiddling with the other "special" partitions would save me the headache of trying to get the MD button to work etc?

Basically I just dont want the dell crap installed on the computer but uninstalling by add/remove doesnt really get it clean enought.

Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[spyordie007]

I take it they don't actually give you the install CDs?

 

[Bozo Galora]

Well, you asked for "ideas", and since the AT HW/software forums are now kind of dead.......

While many folks here will tell you things like
"formatted my O/S partition and loaded XP SP2 on it from a CD I had, not the recovery disc, and everything worked great"
"oh I just installed a new HDD on my Dell, added the drivers from their disc and everything went peachy"

Well, I just tried to put a new larger clean HDD into a DELL 3000 (a few years old) for a friends PC, and was a bit surprised when I started getting messages FROM THE BIOS CHIP that I had added some RAM - do I want to continue etc., and a message about the HDD (which I dont remember). And of course, the bios itself has virtually no options - even in advanced mode. So I told my friend, lets just get a gigabyte mobo equivalent of the Intel 845G board in the machine, with a normal bios chip and normal bios options (like ram timings), a $94 board we are now waiting for.

So, your prob, which is even worse, since you are employing the non functioning piece of crap O/S Windows MCE, will ultimately cause you misery. (IMHO). My best advice would be to look around for Intel laptop mobo (same, but non Dell), and one of the new Seagate lap drives. But then you are talking about taking apart the lappie, plus ~$200, and a major project here.

Note that you are dealing with a laptop, something virtually impossible to build on your own, which means basically you are screwed. Dell crap is hardwired into your system, and theres nothing you can do about it, unless you do what I mentioned - which will eliminate hidden partitions, ghosted partitions, driver partitions, recovery partitions, O/S partitions, Dell programmed bios chips, etc.

ENJOY!!!

 

[loup garou]

There will be a folder with drivers already on the drive. Back that up to a cd. Or go to Dell support, put in your service tag, and download the appropriate drivers. Reinstall windows to the OS partition (clean install) from the XP CDs and reload drivers as necessary. No different than any other computer in the world. You could also kill the other partitions during windows setup if you like, I usually do, all it will do is remove your ability to do the Dell recovery, which I'm not a big fan of anyways.

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
Well, you asked for "ideas", and since the AT HW/software forums are now kind of dead.......

While many folks here will tell you things like
"formatted my O/S partition and loaded XP SP2 on it from a CD I had, not the recovery disc, and everything worked great"
"oh I just installed a new HDD on my Dell, added the drivers from their disc and everything went peachy"

Well, I just tried to put a new larger clean HDD into a DELL 3000 (a few years old) for a friends PC, and was a bit surprised when I started getting messages FROM THE BIOS CHIP that I had added some RAM - do I want to continue etc., and a message about the HDD (which I dont remember). And of course, the bios itself has virtually no options - even in advanced mode. So I told my friend, lets just get a gigabyte mobo equivalent of the Intel 845G board in the machine, with a normal bios chip and normal bios options (like ram timings), a $94 board we are now waiting for.

So, your prob, which is even worse, since you are employing the non functioning piece of crap O/S Windows MCE, will ultimately cause you misery. (IMHO). My best advice would be to look around for Intel laptop mobo (same, but non Dell), and one of the new Seagate lap drives. But then you are talking about taking apart the lappie, plus ~$200, and a major project here.

Note that you are dealing with a laptop, something virtually impossible to build on your own, which means basically you are screwed. Dell crap is hardwired into your system, and theres nothing you can do about it, unless you do what I mentioned - which will eliminate hidden partitions, ghosted partitions, driver partitions, recovery partitions, O/S partitions, Dell programmed bios chips, etc.

ENJOY!!!

The username says it all folks. :roll: