user info remains after wiping hard drive

jumanji · 30 Sep 2014

dustman said:

Hello again, my friend! I am running a 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium edition. I don't see anything on the disk that indicates an edition number. Where would I find that? And yes, the previous owner is Back-in-Use and he is still listed as the administrator. It even gives his net connections. I had done a complete wipe of the HDD, and when I reloaded windows, it never asked for my key, nor did it offer me a chance to partition. It just loaded Windows.Another funny thing, I also have the Dell Drivers disk that came with my original computers. Whe I had put it iin the one I bought on ebay, it refused to load the drivers, saying this is NOT a Dell computer. Program will close. No matter how you slice it, it is certainly a Dell! Go figure!

dustman

Hi,

There is no point in repeating the same thing again and again without answering any questions raised or carrying out the suggestions.

Please answer the questions point by point :

1. Is your ebay purchased used DELL XPS 8000, running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit? Yes/No

2. Is the Windows Product Key of that machine is 6RBBT-F8VPQ-QCPVQ-KHRB8-RMV82 ? Yes/No

3. Does that system show that it is activated? Yes/No (you can check it with Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > System. At the bottom of that screen you may see " Windows is activated " and below that the product ID XXXXX-OEM-8992687-00095 )

If the answers to all the above questions is Yes, you have a genuine DELL System with a valid SLIC Table in the Bios and your system will auto activate when you do a clean install with the DELL OEM Reinstallation DVD you have.

( I always prefer to format the drive beforehand, I always prefer to have the drivers downloaded from the Dell website, install those after the Windows installation is complete, take a backup when everything shows OK in the Device Manager and then only connect to the internet and allow windows to update .. That is how I had done my clean install with the DELL OEM installation Disk.)

Since it is a desktop, it may be possible to remove any video card plugged in, if the system originally had one such video card. It is for you to check . Most people use Speccy to determine the system content. You may run Speccy on your system and compare it with the one run on purchased system and check for a 1:1 compliance. You may also check the display adapter in both the systems with Device Manager.

The part No of the DELL OEM Reinsatallaion DVD Windows 7 Home Premium which I received from DELL and indicated at the bottom of the DVD is P/N :00WK4. Check that your DVD has that P/N at the bottom.
While you could have got it for free directly from DELL, other dealers might have sourced it from DELL or replicate it and sell it for a price.

dustman · 01 Oct 2014

Thank you all for your help! I repeated the HDD erase with Active Kill Disk and it worked this time.

Thank you all again,

dustman

jumanji · 01 Oct 2014

Good. As I said in post #4 - On the face of it, it appears that active@kill disk did not really wipe it. Can you please point me to the actual download site, which one you downloaded, and how you ran it?

And you did not answer that question at all for us to really come to that conclusion.

And all throughout this thread you have persistently overlooked to answer any queries raised.

In any case, all is well that ends well and if all the conditions mentioned in my post #11 have been met and true, then you should have no difficulty in clean installing with the OEM Reinstallation Disk.

But please remember that it will auto-activate with the product Key 6RBBT-F8VPQ-QCPVQ-KHRB8-RMV82 and don't come back with another thread saying it did not ask me to activate it at all. :)

Have a good day.

dustman · 01 Oct 2014

Hi, Jumanji,

You are obviously much more knowedgable than I am about computers. I didn't know exactly how to answer many of the questios. Example: I have run Windows Easy Transfer several times before, no problems. Now I am mired trying to find out DNS suffixs, domains, workgroups, and such. No solution I have found online works. I have recently upgraded my main system to Windows Ultimate, and my new/used computer to windows Professional. Now I can't transfer my filess.This is driving me nuts. What system are you currently using?

I am not trying to be rude or unresponsive, I just don't have the answers. I don't even know how to do a screenshot. I have to take pics of my screen (very fuzzy) with a camera, and load it on Photobucket and try to get an URL. Usually that doesn't work either, and I have to just upload a jpeg from my computer. I kow a lot about some things and nothing about others. And I truly appreciate the help from everybody. I just can't keep up with it all working full time. My beautiful wife has suffered a stroke, is legally blind, can barely walk, and has congestive heart failure. I have to take care of her and it just doesn't leave me much time to get on the computer. But I find myself having to spend hours trying to find solutions to these computer nightmares. Please don't give up on me.

Thanks,

dustman

gregrocker · 01 Oct 2014

I don't recommend WET which often fails with data loss. Better to use the backup procedures, installation steps, OS tools and methods compiled in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which have been used without complaint by over a million consumers, and always results in a perfect install that will stay that way for exactly as long as you stick with those tools and methods.

dustman · 01 Oct 2014

Thanks, Gregrocker,

I will see what I can do.

dustman