Dell PC - No OS CD

TheDonMan

This weekend, I was planning on reformatting Windows for the first time since I bought my PC two years ago. However, when I went to make sure I had all my drivers and CD's etc.. I discovered I had no Windows XP CD (when I received my PC I stupidly never really bothered to check).

What I have, instead, is a piece of paper, with a picture of a C.D on it, which says "You do not require a OS CD as your computer already has it built in etc..." After doing a bit of searching I found I could restore my PC to the state to which I received it in, by holding down F8 or something while Windows starts.

Anyway, personally I would rather do a complete reinstall of Windows rather than this method, which seems more of a glorified system restore than anything. Is there any way I can acquire the CD from Dell, or is the method stated above actually satisfactory? Also, would the age of my PC affect acquiring the CD?

Donald-Duck

Ring dell, theyll tell you that you can't have a CD. Just keep insisting and you'll get one

daftdave

demand it , you did pay for it after all

GerardKeating

daftdave wrote: »

demand it , you did pay for it after all

Actually, NO. Dell usually charged extra for media...

nobeastsofierce

TheDonMan wrote: »

Anyway, personally I would rather do a complete reinstall of Windows rather than this method, which seems more of a glorified system restore than anything.

Make no mistake, booting off the restore partition can wipe your system just as well/badly as your restore CD will. Certainly it may first give you the option of doing the Windows system restore, but when you select no to that, it then restores your comp back to factory settings, exactly the same as your restore CD will.

byte

I'd assume that you won't be able to fully format your harddrive without eradicating the restore partition?

Capt'n Midnight

Ring dell anyway
ask what could you do if the drive has been wiped or died perhaps ?

F8 thing does the wipe for you
then run pc decrapifier and ccleaner to get back to a clean install
back up any data first

byte wrote: »

I'd assume that you won't be able to fully format your harddrive without eradicating the restore partition?

don't get me started about how much I hate this, I mean the only reason people have pc's is for their data, even if it's just bookmarks in a browser

if you don't have a usb hdd then
boot up using a linux live cd
if you have C: in windows then shrink the windows partition, reboot into windows and create a in the spare space
if you have C: and then shrink so it starts later on the disk ( or delete and recreate it if it won't let you put free space at the start of the partition )
then go into windows and copy stuff to
do the restore
shrink the partition to leave enough space for your
then use testdisk to recover it

cian1500ww

Just download a copy of it from a torrent. Once u hav a valid lience key its not illegal.

Gonzo_Fiend

You're better off loading from the recovery partition anyway. It has the drivers preloaded and takes less time.

rubadub

byte wrote: »

I'd assume that you won't be able to fully format your harddrive without eradicating the restore partition?

Yeah, I did 3 dells in the last few weeks. Got back 5GB on my own 100gb laptop, fecking cheapskates, they steal 5gb on you to save themselves giving you a disk, that 5GB was worth a fortune at the time, i.e. the upgrade prices were massive. The others had smaller HDs and freed up a little less. There was 3 orr 4 partitions on one of them.

Gonzo_Fiend wrote: »

You're better off loading from the recovery partition anyway. It has the drivers preloaded and takes less time.

You will not get that space I mentioned. Also your dell will have a service tag on it, you can enter this online and get all the latest drivers here, I did this with my 3 and worked fine. I am probably going to do 2 more this weekend. Speeded them up hugely.

You can also get nlite & vlite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLite
which strip down your OS install, and you can preload service packs etc.

Alun

nobeastsofierce wrote: »

Certainly it may first give you the option of doing the Windows system restore, but when you select no to that, it then restores your comp back to factory settings, exactly the same as your restore CD will.

Not really. On Dells doing the Ctrl-F11 thing and doing a restore will restore an image of the OS as it was when it was delivered, including all drivers and pre-installed applications, aka cr@pware.

The Dell OS CD just installs Windows, nothing more, and it's then up to you to install the drivers yourself, either from the drivers CD if you have one, or (preferably) by downlaoding them from Dell's website.