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Factory Restore - Guide?

post #1 of 4
8/23/08 at 9:36pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I want to restore my 2006 Inspiron 9400 to it's factory settings in preparation for selling it just after my new XPS M1330 arrives.

Is there a good guide for this F11 function during boot?

What should I download from the Dell site first?

I want to be able to shred the hard drive to securely clean all the data, then do the format and restore - does that make sense?

thanks for your help or advice

Philip
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post #2 of 4
8/24/08 at 11:02pm
If you want it wiped clean, there's a free utility called dban (It can be found via a quick google search) its loaded on a bootable CD and wipes your hard drive hard enough to meet Department of Defense standards. What's more is it can do it on just a single partition. I've used dban before on a customer's laptop she was going to sell without disturbing or borking the restore partition.

As far as getting into the restore utility when you see the Blue bar at the top of the screen that says www.dell.com you'll hit either F11 or Shift + F11 or Ctrl + F11 (I can't remember which one) You'll then have the utility format and restore to factory software.
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post #3 of 4
8/25/08 at 7:06am
Thread Starter 
Thanks, I'll try the Boot 'n Nuke and hopefully it'll work on just the one partition so I can use the restore
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post #4 of 4
9/9/08 at 6:06pm
If you do not have a recovery partitions then you will not have the abiliy to restore to factory settings. If not formatting the computer is not so bad.
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