NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Notebooks - General › Just bought E1505...reformat?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Just bought E1505...reformat?

post #1 of 9
6/9/07 at 12:12am
Thread Starter 
Pulled the trigger and bought a Dell E1505, Core 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB/2.00GHz/667MHz), 15.4 Inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WXGA+, 256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400 HyperMemory, 1 GB ram (plan on ordering at least another gig from newegg) , Microsoft Windows Vista Business , 8X DVD+/-RW Drive, 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module (2.0+EDR), wireless mouse...

Any opinions on this decision, good/bad. Cost $1,097 (after $500 coupon).
Also, I questioned my ship date..and they upgraded me to next day shipping for free...so someone else might want to try that.

Main question is this...I've heard so much about the bloatware...I chatted w/ dell customer service and requested the OS and drivers disks, and was told sure they would be shipped w/ the computer. Is this a difficult reformat? I'm pretty good w/ using computers, though I don't know much about the actual hardware. Someone told me this would be different than on other computers. Any help/opinions appreciated.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 9
6/9/07 at 1:38am
Just set your bios to boot to cd-rom drive, put in the WinXP disk, go to the setup screen with all the partitions. Delete only the main partition(the largest one). I think there is a 8Mb and 3.7Gb partition, leave these alone because its for the Media Direct and front buttons. Now create a new partition(s) from the one just deleted and install the OS. Go to dell.com and find the update drivers for your model and download them. Install the drivers and you should be good to go.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 9
6/9/07 at 6:21am
You don't have to set the BIOS to boot to the CD first. Just press F12 immediately after you power on the laptop and it will bring up the one-time boot menu. From there you can choose to boot from the CD.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 9
6/9/07 at 10:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mike072983 View Post
Just set your bios to boot to cd-rom drive, put in the WinXP disk, go to the setup screen with all the partitions. Delete only the main partition(the largest one). I think there is a 8Mb and 3.7Gb partition, leave these alone because its for the Media Direct and front buttons. Now create a new partition(s) from the one just deleted and install the OS. Go to dell.com and find the update drivers for your model and download them. Install the drivers and you should be good to go.
I have windows vista business....that going to make any difference? Also, I asked the tech guy to verify I'd be getting the actual OS/drivers disks and not the dell restore disks and he said yes...do we think that this is true or he's assuming I'm stupid?
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 9
6/9/07 at 10:30am
Thread Starter 
Also, another question, and maybe I should start a new thread for this but, since I do plan on upping my RAM to 2 or maybe even the max 3.4 gigs, I read that I will have to do something with the BIOS to let it know so it can recognize the change...is this complicated?
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 9
6/10/07 at 10:28am
I would stick with 2GB on that machine. I don't think you are going to be doing anything that requires that much RAM, unless you are planning on using VM.

You don't need to delete the partition, you just need to select it & do a quick format.

On the newer drives there is:
31 MB (diag partition)
10GB (recovery partition)
2 GB (Media direct Partition)
xxx GB (usable drive space)
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 9
6/10/07 at 12:22pm
Thread Starter 
okay...consider me a newb, what is VM? and as far as all that goes, can access that by pressing F12 as its booting up? And about going to 2 GB RAM over 1, will I need to notify the computers BIOS so that it will recognize it? and if so how do I go about doing that.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 9
6/10/07 at 12:55pm
VM=Virtualization.. If you don't know about it you don't use it.

You can access the boot options menu by pressing F12 during the BIOS screen. it will say something to the effect of "preparing one time boot menu" in the upper right hand corner.

Your system will detect the new RAM as soon as you install it, there are no changes that need to be made in the BIOS
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 9
6/14/07 at 12:34pm
Yes, Dell installs a ton of junk on it's OS installs. You can uninstall a lot of it, but I typically just do a clean install myself. 20-25 process ftw.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Dell Notebooks - General
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Notebooks - General › Just bought E1505...reformat?