Reformat and reinstall windows 7 on Dell

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 14:58

Hi guys, looking for a quick bit of advice. Just got a Dell Studio 15, and want to format it and reinstall windows 7 from scratch with the provided disk.

How do I go about formatting it? It currently has 3 partitions, one is tiny, another about 20GB for Dell factory reset and then the main partition. Should I completely get rid of all the partitions or what? Should I simply reinstall Windows booting from the disk onto the main partition?

Thanks

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:15

Set bios first boot device to your optical drive, stick the win7 disk in and start the pc.

It will say press a key to boot from your disk.

During the install you get a chance to format and wipe the partitions.

Bin the lot!

This is a copy of windows7 and not a recovery disk?

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:46

Yeah its definitely a copy of Windows 7. So I simply follow the install instructions, and DURING the install it will ask me if I want to format? Because I went as far as to when it starts to install but didn't go further as it didn't ask me to format

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:49

After a few minutes of install, you get a simple to understand option box appear with choices of what's you want to do. Its very easy to use.

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:52

Righto, its currently on "Expanding windows files" part, it pops up after that then?

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:53

Delete all partitions aswell. Then it will create and format a new partition for you to use

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:54

Be patience. All good things to those who wait

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 15:57

There are 3 partitions, one called "Recovery", a small unnamed one, and the OS one. Should I leave the recovery one?

Its still expanding windows files, still on 0%!!

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:01

Bin the lot, I don't think you can get rid of that small one. I installed windows7 and it kept approximately 9mb for something.

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:05

Apparently its some sort of boot partition that windows needs and creates when its installed

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:06

PS on 55%! GOd its slow. I'm off to buy mass effect 2!

Markachy · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:14

And its now just restarted and on the "completing installation" stage, still no mention of formatting...

Hairybudda · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:39

Did you hit the upgrade option or something? If it's a retail disc you should get the option to partition and format during the install procedure.

stulid · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:42

As above, two options, upgrade or custom, you click custom.

Then all options to mess up your harddisk are presented.

Essexraptor · 30 Jan 2010 at 16:52

Custom = clean install... so it formats the drive completely and creates new OS partition

Upgrade = uses old system info, eg. from Vista, to install into existing OS partition. These old files are stored in a folder that can be deleted once you are happy that install is stable and working correctly