What A Difference A Reformat Makes!

All the best plans of mice and men!  Well the plans to reformat the laptop didn't go exactly the way it was meant to. 

But we got there (or are getting there eventually).  The original plan was to return the laptop to the same condition as when we bought it. The laptop instruction book told us how to do it but it wasn't quite as the book said it should be.

We had updated the laptop with official Windows from Vista to Windows 7.  And the return to Factory Condition option isn't available in Windows 7!  This option was called the Dell Image option but it was nowhere to be seen.

The beauty of the Factory Image reset is you don't have to worry about installing any drivers, they are all installed automatically from the Dell Laptop Image.  A driver is a small program which runs the "Dell" laptop parts of the system.  These drivers are for the screen, the sound, the wireless internet connection, the webcam and other pieces.

To do a full return to factory conditions meant I had to 'manually' re install Vista and the Dell Drivers from the disks provided. 

So off I set.  The Vista reinstall was OK but I was having problems with the drivers.  So I restarted the now Vista laptop, hit the F8 key and got into the 'restore' options.  Bingo, there was the restore to Dell Laptop Image option!  15 minutes later it was just like the first time we bought the laptop.

Then came the reinstall Windows 7!  This went reasonably OK.  Another hour or so and Windows 7 was up and running.  Then it was updates time.  After all the updates for Windows 7 and the 2010 version of Office I have installed the updates total around 1GB!

The photo above shows the laptop doing 131 updates, most of these are for Office 2010 which I installed this morning.

But we are getting there OK.

It is amazing how much quicker the laptop runs after the reformat.  Though not as quick as the new laptop, it is now a credible backup for either Trish or myself 'just in case'.

The battery in the old laptop is dead so it only runs when connected to the mains power supply.  But it appears to be running quite OK after the reformat!  It was worth the hassle!