Clean Reinstall Windows 7 Ultimate Laptop?

[paulyjames]

Hey all. We have an old laptop thats a dell inspiron e1405. It uses windows 7 ultimate. There was a password on the computer that we didn't know what it was but i saw a video on youtube on how to get through this process which took a while.


So this laptop has the old documents from a while back. Also the laptop is pretty slow since well this laptop is a very old laptop.


Intel duo core t2350 is the processor with 2gb ram and 32 bit windows 7 ultimate. Hard drive is only about 62gb total etc.


First off, could we do a clean reinstall of windows 7 ultimate where the computer would be a lot faster? The thing is this laptop is originally windows vista but later on we got it upgraded to windows 7 ultimate a while back. I think this was with a new cd that was bought a while back. Im certain this is a legit version back then but we dont have that cd anymore. We dont even have the old vista cd anymore since this pc is at least 10 years old etc.


Could we do a clean reinstall and if we, do you think there would be much improvement? First thing i noticed is its 2gb ram which is obviously very slow. Processor is slow and hard drive is small.


But could we do a clean reinstall of windows 7 ultimate without the cd?

 

[Marie SWE]

Hey all. We have an old laptop thats a dell inspiron e1405. It uses windows 7 ultimate. There was a password on the computer that we didn't know what it was but i saw a video on youtube on how to get through this process which took a while.


So this laptop has the old documents from a while back. Also the laptop is pretty slow since well this laptop is a very old laptop.


Intel duo core t2350 is the processor with 2gb ram and 32 bit windows 7 ultimate. Hard drive is only about 62gb total etc.


First off, could we do a clean reinstall of windows 7 ultimate where the computer would be a lot faster? The thing is this laptop is originally windows vista but later on we got it upgraded to windows 7 ultimate a while back. I think this was with a new cd that was bought a while back. Im certain this is a legit version back then but we dont have that cd anymore. We dont even have the old vista cd anymore since this pc is at least 10 years old etc.


Could we do a clean reinstall and if we, do you think there would be much improvement? First thing i noticed is its 2gb ram which is obviously very slow. Processor is slow and hard drive is small.


But could we do a clean reinstall of windows 7 ultimate without the cd?

Hello
A reinstallation will make the computer a little more alert again. But I would probably upgrade the RAM to 4Gb.

If you have lost the DVD, but you still have the product key, you can download the installer from the microsoft website. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

Brink in here has done a realy good guide for a clean installation of windows 7.
Here is the link. Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums

//Marie

 

[paulyjames]

Hi there. Where is the product key located? Because i looked at the bottom of the laptop and the sticker that is there is not there fully.


There is another sticker with the service tag though. So would that work/not work?

 

[Marie SWE]

Hi there. Where is the product key located? Because i looked at the bottom of the laptop and the sticker that is there is not there fully.


There is another sticker with the service tag though. So would that work/not work?

Okay you only have a service tag.. and that one is for windows vista. You can order new recovery disks from Dell support, but that is Vista disks..
If the computer works it's possible to extract windows 7 product key from it.. I saw a thread in here somewhere about it a few days ago.... but were is a really good question

 

[Megahertz07]

Retrieve the Win 7 ultimate used license LicenseCrawler - Download
Get a Win 7 ultimate 32 bits and do a clean install. Use the key you retrieve.
windows 7 clean install but unable to get updates - Page 3 - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[AddRAM]

Speccy will show your key. Speccy - Free Download

Buy a solid state drive for it, don't waste your time installing windows on a hard drive.

Hard drives get hot, and just add heat to the laptop.

I recommend a Samsung. A 500GB 860 Evo is only $149.99

And a 250GB 860 EVO is only $94.99

Samsung Solid State Drives - Memory Storage | Samsung US

And as already suggested, max out the memory, you will have to do some research to find out how much the motherboard will support. But it looks like it will take 4GB total, so if you wanted to up the memory, you`d have to buy a 2 x 2GB set. Some laptops have 2 slots on the bottom of the laptop, and some have 1 on the bottom and 1 under the keyboard.

Installing a solid state drive and maxing out the memory are the 2 best things you can do to speed it up.

 

[mrjimphelps]

Log onto Dell.com. Do a search for Factory Recovery, or something like that. You can download and create a factory recovery flash drive for your particular Dell computer. Doing a factory recovery with that flash drive will put you back to brand-new, out of the box condition as far as Windows is concerned.

32-bit Windows 7 will be a bit slow, but it will run ok with 2 GB of RAM. You definitely don't want to go with 64-bit Windows 7 - it needs more memory than 2 GB. But my guess is that the factory recovery flash drive will put 32-bit Windows 7 on the computer.

 

[paulyjames]

Hello
A reinstallation will make the computer a little more alert again. But I would probably upgrade the RAM to 4Gb.

If you have lost the DVD, but you still have the product key, you can download the installer from the microsoft website. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

Brink in here has done a realy good guide for a clean installation of windows 7.
Here is the link. Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums

//Marie

Hi there. When i went to right click my computer, it does show the product key. Its a long list of numbers right? Because it shows it under windows is activated.


Well i dont want to open up the laptop. But if i do clean reinstall, it still would be faster right?

 

[paulyjames]

Okay so i don't have the cds or anything like that for it. So how long would it take for the entire process to clean reinstall it? I will just keep the hard drive and ram as it is. So even if i don't upgrade to ssd or ram, it would still be decent right?

 

[SIW2]

It should be a bit snappier after a clean install. You might be better using 32 bit with 2gb ram.

Takes 15 mins or so to install. Then you will have to get the updates, which takes quite a while.

If you are sure you have the product key, you can d/l the installation media from here.
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