I'm installing a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive into my E1705.
Yesterday, I pulled the old drive and put the WD into the bay, booted from Windows MCE CD, Windows installed files, rebooted and went to the GUI install screen. I tried to install 5 times and every time I would get the infamous 33/34 minute hang up.
I've read that this is usually due to the install media being corrupted, or Windows not being able to install a piece of hardware. So I also tried my second, never before used Windows MCE install disk (Dell had sent me two copies). That produced the same results.
My only conclusion is one of two possibilities. One, I just got a bum hard drive. I already have a replacement drive on the way from newegg to cover that base.
Two, I read that some copies of OEM operating system disks will not install with certain changes in hardware. Anyone heard of this? Is our copies of Dell Windows MCE stripped down in some way? Is it possible that our copy of Dell Windows would not recognize a WD hard drive?
Would seem really strange that a simple change in hard drive, especially considering Dell designed the bay to be plug-n-play upgradeable, would prevent a clean install of Windows.
I should be getting my upgrade (Pro 64) within the next week and was wondering which method is better. I obviously know that it will run a bit faster for the first month or so with clean install, however, my concern is with the activation of the dell free upgrade version. Will it simply be boot the free upgrade disk and install and it will be activated fine? Or, is there more to it? Also, say a year from now I wanted reformat/reinstall win 7... How would I go about doing that with the dell free upgrade DVD?
With all the hand wringing folks have been doing about the lack of drivers for a clean install of Win7 I thought I'd jump in to the deep end of the pool with my FZ190 and investigate an alternative. My good friends Rajesh and Dr. Pratik have done clean installs of Win7 on FZ models, but I decided to take a different approach... the "dreaded" OS in place upgrade. Partly out of curiosity, I wanted to see if it would work, but mainly because I have a ton of software that would need to be reinstalled, if I did a clean install. That would mean days or weeks of inventorying every thing I have installed, digging up installation media and then installing all the stuff. I just don't have the spare time. So...
This past weekend I imaged my C: drive (all my data and I mean ALL my data is on D:, I am a fanatic about that). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR C: DRIVE BEFORE YOU TRY AN UPGRADE! I ran the Windows 7 Update adviser and it said I had some issues:
Quote:
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT - NVIDIA Not compatible The driver installed for this device is not compatible with Windows 7....................
I just received Windows 7 Upgrade Disc from Dell, and it says "Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional Upgrade" on the disc and COA also says "Win Vista Bus to Win 7 Pro UPG Fullfill."
I was curious if it is really impossible to do a clean install with upgrade disc as regular upgrade disc is. (At least I was told that it is impossible), but I did not want to upgrade my notebook to Windows 7 yet.
So, I gave it a try on VMWare. It installed just like regular Windows 7 disc in a empty HDD. It even took COA that came with the upgrade disc. I did not try activating because it probably will fail if it uses SLIC to activate, or in worst case, it will get activated on my VM, and I will be unable to active it when I actually want to upgrade my notebook's OS
I'm thinking about purchasing windows 7, do i need a clean install of windows vista to upgrade? and also do i need to get all the drivers ect like in the clean install of vista if i wish to upgrade? i have a vaio vgn-fw21L
Has anyone done this on an Acer laptop? I recently bought a 5515 for my parents and after seeing all the bloatware that came on it I figured I'd do a clean OS install. I backed up the CD Key using the ABR utility and backed up all the drivers. I then started the new OS install and get all the way to "completing installation" and it sits there spinning for a good 20-30 mins before it freezes. I tried the 32 bit version first followed by the 64 bit and had no luck either try. I eventually reinstalled the factory settings using the recovery disc.
I got my laptop but did not do a clean install. I just removed all the bloatware I could think of. Is there a guide to do just that though, get rid of all the stuff that shouldn't be there so that you essentially have a clean install without all the bloat or footprints of it?
I can't install my integrated webcam. After downloading the driver and opening the file installation starts and then suddenly it just ends with the message there was an error during installing.
So the thing I've done are: installing the drivers, which failed.
I've also looked in the device managemer app but could find anything of a camera.
Doing a clean install of Vista and keep getting prompted to locate and install driver for "Coprocessor". Have looked in device manager (yellow mark) but I just don't know what it is. Windows says it can't locate software for it.
Don't know what I am looking for on Acers site under drivers, installed all other stuff OK, Realtek, NVidia etc. Could it be a modem driver. Properties in device manager give no clues, it's listed as "other devices" along with the webcam which I have to sort drivers out for too.
If you upgrade the e1705 GPU to say a 7950GTX GPU; don't you have to worry about the compatibility with the chipset? Or does the BIOS flash take care of that?
I've been reading and trying to figure out which processors are compatable with my mobo. I think I have the "Napa" style mobo because I bought it in 2006, right? What options does that give me to upgrade to?
Also, is it possible to get two dimms of 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM? Will my system support the 4 gigs of RAM or will I be wasting money because I've already reached the cap at 2gigs? Can my system support DDR2 800MHz RAM?
What are my options for GPU replacements? I feel like I have a pretty solid part right now but if I can upgrade it I'd like to. The only restraint is that I don't want to mod my laptop, so if I have to break something or cut something out then I don't want to do it. So basically I'm looking for GPUs that I can just drop in without any modding.
Im running vista 64 home premium and want to use my upgrade discs to get to win 7.
If i want to delete the recovery partition when do i do it? Is the best process to back up my files and then do a recovery back to vistas original state when i first got the machine and them delete the recovery partition?
Then put in the win7 upgrade dvd? Can i merge the recovery partition with the main one in vista after to delete it?
How well will the E6400 work without the dell DCP software installed. I've had the E6400 only two weeks and thinking of wiping the OS and installing Win 7 again with only the necessary drivers, without all the Dell software. The machine was using over 3.1 gigs of RAM yesterday and there was NOTHING running on the taskbar. Looked at the process list and there was no one process that was consuming my RAM, I was getting nickel and dimed by all the processes that are running. DCP seemed to be a big consumer as well as CPU time.
I’m thinking of doing a clean install on my M1530, and im just trying to decide which options to go for, and which not to.
I will be installing Vista Ultimate. I mainly use the computer for internet surfing, watching films, using Microsoft office, and gaming (Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4 etc.).
The main things I am trying to decide are:
Should I install Mediadirect?
As far as I can see the only advantage of this is getting slightly more (can anyone confirm how much?) battery life whilst watching films on the go. I mainly watch films whilst connected to power, but this could be useful in the future.32 or 64 bit?
I have previously been running 32 bit, but would be more than happy to jump on the 64 bit bandwagon, as I have heard that it’s slightly snappier, and also my 4 gigs of ram would be put to full use. Would there be any compatibility issues with any of my games etc? Would appreciate some info on this. It could lead on to...Dual-boot?
Could have vista 32 and 64 dual booted? Or another thing that took my fancy was perhaps throwing on opensuse? I’m going to open a new thread regarding the battery life etc that this would give to try and decide if its for me,
I am concerned, however, as to the shear amount of Dell apps that are pre installed on the 1640 boot partition. I want to keep the dock for ex. ..I know from experience the order in what is installed as well as what is on my utlis disc is important. So-
1. Has anyone already done this install? Would LOVE your feedback. 2.If not what is the consensus in this forum for such an install. ie order of drivers,etc.
Considering doing a clean install of XP Pro on my Windows partition in order to purge my E6400 of all the Dell and other party bloatware and start from scratch.
I got my e6500 thursday and I have been playing around with it during this weekend. Reinstalled it like 5 times
First impressions of this laptop that it sure is made with good materials.
Now for my questions. Since I reformated my harddrive I lost that dell bla bla installation when you press F8 during boot. Can I make such a partition by my self?
Do anybody have some kinda HOW TO or WHAT TO install first?
What antivirus should I use. I tried PANDA during weekend but it was totally buggy.
The lights on this laptop in the upper left corner, I just get the wifi lamp and bluetooth lamp to light up. What is the lamp to the right of the blue tooth lamp for?
The dell driver for profiles due different networks is a total mess for me. If somebody here knows how I should install it please let me know.
My compture: E6500 T9600 4gb ram Nvidia 1920x? res. 250gh HD
I have a Dell E1705 / 9400. I want to upgrade RAM. Currenly i have 2 * 1GB 667 MHZ RAM. I want to upgrade to 4GB. Will my laptop support. I want to upgrade to maximum frequency ram. 800 Mhz or more. If its available.
I just upgrade my E1705 wireless to Intel 4965 AGN. I also installed the third antenna, and my speed stays at only 54Mbps.
The system recognized the third antenna. I have a D-Link DIR-655 N Draft wireless router and have confirm that other laptop with N type down load 300Mbps.
I download the driver from Dell website, and the wireless work, but only at 54Mbps.
After reading a ton about upgrading my e1705 to a 7900GTX (actually, an FX2500M), I went ahead and bought one on eBay. To my horror, the card doesn't fit.
I snapped off the little plastic parts that keep the left heatpipe from fitting; that isn't the problem. The problem is that Dell seems to have modified the motherboard to prevent such installations (my e1705 is a fairly recent one). At the top portion of the video card, there's a connector that matches a connector on the motherboard underneath. That motherboard connector is too high, which prevents the video card from inserting into its PCI Express socket. In addition, the videocard post on the upper right (where the screw would insert into the thread) is missing. That part isn't so important, but that damn connector definitely is.
1) Has anyone seen this before, on a newer model e1705?
2) The connector appears to be soldered on, so I'm not sure I could remove it even if I wanted to. Does anyone know if I *can* remove it, and if so, how? What is this connector used for? I assume it's some sort of SLI connector, since it has a matching one on the videocard itself?
Pictures will be provided upon request. I'm pretty bummed, as it appears I'm screwed. I'm also steamed at Dell, which has evidently modified their motherboards to prevent cheapskate upgrading.
