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 Post subject: Dell Laptop reformat
PostPosted: Wed 03-24-2004 2:01AM 
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I have a 40GB HD and I've got 17 GB free. I have 9 GB of music and music videos. A GB or so for Neverwinter Nights. I'll say 2 GB of program files, but that is probably pushing it. So that adds up to 12 GB's. Why do I only have 17 free? I'm running XP Pro but the computer came with Home edition installed on it. Someone mentioned a hidden partition or something like that, with it running XP home. regardless I would like to save a couple of files, my music stuff, and then reformat as to get everything Dell off the computer. Any suggestions as to how to go about doing this? I've heard of programs that overwrite every part of the HD with random 0s and 1s. Is this the best way to go? Advice? Do's, don'ts? Suggestions. Thanks.


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PostPosted: Wed 03-24-2004 2:14AM 
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You do not need to write ones and zero's on your drive. (unless you are going to sell it, send it to some one, have the FBI take it)
I dont see your issue? 40 GB hard drive, NTFS. so thats like 37 GB of windows usable space. 17(free) + 12(used) + ~ 4 XP home dell + ~2 gig XP pro = ~ 35 GB. and if you have your R.bin set to some like 5% of drive space thats the rest. (I have a 8 GB R.bin) you might have a restore partition, or some unformated space but I think you would see it in my computer, or when you installed PRO.
why dont you just erase you XP home install and your other knowen dell stuff using explorer, and if you feel like it defrag.


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PostPosted: Wed 03-24-2004 5:20PM 
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Actually, with Dell, you have to dig deeper than that. Dell is notorious for making there stuff only like Dell software. You will never completly remove Dell from your computer unless you switch out practically everything that came with it. Being that this is a laptop, that isn't possible, however, you can reload the flash BIOS with something that isn't so "Dell'ish." That is definatly not my specialty, so ask someone else for those details...

Redo BIOS and complete HDD format should remove almost everything Dell.

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PostPosted: Wed 03-24-2004 6:32PM 
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Dell includes an image file of the original install on the harddisk. The most recent file name i know of was some variation on "ZZtop". that will be a couple of gigs, unless you did a clean install of XP Pro. Windows also hides disk space used for recovery. I think that 12%(max) is default. Alternate click on My Computer and select "Properties" then click the "System Restore" tab. Select your HDD, then click the settings button. This will open a dialogue with a slider to adjust your disk space used for restoration. I wouldn't reccomend turning it off, but for a laptop about 2 gigs should be sufficienct. Maybe less. Hope it helps, Dell just hung up on me when I bitched them out about it.

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