Re: Reinstalling OS on D4550

"S.Lewis" <Gossamer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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<Boris> wrote in message
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"S.Lewis" <Gossamer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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<Boris> wrote in message
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Looks like this is the weekend for reinstalling OSs...

Anyway, I've got a Dimension 4550, which has been running the
original factory install of Windows XP Home since March 2003. I
want to set it back
to factory, rather than reinstall the OS, but I don't think this
vintage machine came with that capability. The owner's manual only
talks about System Restore and a complete reinstall from the OS CD.

There is a directory on the hard drive, C:\Dell\Images\Express.img
and IMG.dir, but these are under 1MB, and I don't think these are
factory images, or even programs which would launch a factory
image.

Am I stuck with a complete reinstall? If so, I may just reinstall
on a larger hard drive and put the original hard drive on the shelf
(or install as a slave drive) in case I run into trouble with
drivers for peripherals and new video/sound cards, etc.


control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disk
management.

This gives two partitions on C:

39 MB FAT
Healthy (EISA Configuration)

Local Disk (C:)
55.84 GB NTFS
Healthy (System)
(this is the only one visible in Windows Explorer)


See if the drive has an image partition at the end of the drive,
approximately 2-4GB in size.........

Don't see anything like this.


CTL+F11 at the Dell splash should reach it if it (and the 30mb/40mb
utility partition) are not compromised.

Repeated attempts at CTL/F11 at Dell splash screen do nothing, and
Windows loads up as usual.

Thanks



You're looking at a clean install, Boris. Get your drivers downloaded
and lined up before you either format or install a new drive.

Here's the WinXP drivers page for the Dim4550:
http://tinyurl.com/64ngeb

-Chipset drivers
-Video driver
-Network driver
-Audio driver
-Modem driver (if needed)

*Be prepared for a shiiteload of Windows updates - even if you're
using a WinXP SP2 install CD.

Good luck

Stew



Yep, clean install. I'm looking at the rest of the day to determine and
record what I have, what I want to put on the new disk, get all drivers,
all application CDs loaded, network, printers, cameras, scanner, and, of
course, test.

I do have all the original CDs that shipped back in March 2003, but the
XP CD is only SP1. I've got the SP2 CD that Microsoft issued in 2004,
but I've also got other Dell OEM XP SP2 CDs from other machines I have.
Hmmm...

About that 39 MB partition I saw in Disk Management, I see what this is
now.

I rebooted and hit F12 to get the Boot Device Menu, chose 8) to Boot to
Utility Partition, and a screen came up briefly with something like (too
fast to see) Loading Windows 95, and then I got a Hardware Diagnostics
application (looked like vintage Win95), Build V1206.0, copyright 2002
Dell, with my service tag number. It was 'mouse' navigable, and tested
all parts of the system. Depending on how long you wanted to spend
testing, or what parts you wanted to test, your choices were:

Express Test, 10-20 mins.
Extended Test, 1 hr.
Custom Test, specific tests
Symptom Tree, choose based on symptoms

I choose Custom Test, and did all but the hard drives. All passed.

Nice set of tests.
.

Relevant Pages

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