recovery media for a Dell

[timeless]

sorry if this is the wrong section, however it seemed closest to my issue..

the gist of my situation is that lve been provided a laptop to repair.. namely a Dell Inspiron 15R N5110, when l received it earlier it was unbootable which lve since solved the registry was completely corrupted which lve since resolved, however with over 400 processes in the background it definitely needs to be restored and ld like to do this with a completely clean setup.

l have managed to backup important files via safe mode and tho lm awaiting a go ahead on reinstalling ld like to obtain a restoration image while lm waiting.. l have visited Dell website using the service key however a recovery image isnt available.. so lm wondering if there are other places to obtain a restore disk for the laptop (the OS is Win 7 Home Premium) to allow me to do a full clean install, l can try using the recovery partition however to be on the safe side just in case of virus infections l thought clean maybe the way to go.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SIW2]

If you have the product key ( usually on a sticker)

Extract the 3rd party drivers form the existing install. Use DoubleDriver or similar.

Download Double Driver - MajorGeeks

Do a clean install with any win7 installation media and then install the drivers you extracted.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techn...icrosoft-windows-and-office-iso-download-tool

 

[timeless]

so if l obtained a copy of "home premium" from the above location l shouldnt have any issue installing with the COA on the laptop even if its a Dell version? l assumed the versions were somewhat uh... custom, if your certain the COA will work then lve no issue reinstalling.

its just l dont want to loose any recovery possibilities with a working COA (tho ld much prefer that l could do a clean install).

either way, thanks for the links, especially the double driver program, never heard of it before but it sounds immensely useful.

 

[Megahertz07]

Laptops usually comes with a Factory recover partition.
As it will format the drive, BACKUP all user data.
You normally have two (or tree) options:
- Choose restore factory recover from inside Windows.
- Restore from BIOS option (my suggestion)
- Restore from media (DVD's or USB flash drive) created early from Dell Windows program.

 

[timeless]

well lve did a complete clean install (mainly because l couldnt be sure the problems werent down to a virus infection, not to mention it was damn near impossible to use the system).

seems the links above worked, although l did have to call MS automated line for a install code to get the OS activated but it was no biggie...

however, now its all installed lve noticed its not just my laptop that was annoying to get to update.. been waiting 2hrs for winupdate to populate the list of updates l know l have to do before lm finished with it.. no idea why clean installs are messing me about like this.. (yeah l know there are allot of updates, but l never used to find it so annoying or time consuming).

 

[Megahertz07]

KB3125574 contains all the security and non-security fixes released since the release of Windows 7 SP1 that are suitable for general distribution, up through April 2016.
It’s single, Multi language, 488MB update file (msu). On a recent installation, you must have first to install KB3020369.
For more information read this article: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...ows-7-and-8-1/

 

[timeless]

yeah, came across that a few mins ago.. if l had known about it a few months back ld have spent allot less time reinstalling lol, still much appreciated.

now all l need to contemplate is the best free virus scanner for a user who occasionally connects to the internet..

 

[Megahertz07]

I'm using Avira free http://install.avira-update.com/package/antivirus/win/en-us/avira_antivirus_en-us.exe
For Firewall I use ZoneAlarm ZoneAlarm Free Firewall - Personal Computer Firewall Software

 

[timeless]

damn the prerequisite update is taking its sweet time installing..

cheers for the recommendation will take a gander.. was contemplating AVG, but lve not heard as many good things as l used to about their free version.

 

[Megahertz07]

If you intend to install another firewall than Win default, when installing Avira, uncheck firewall. If you don't it will keep saying the firewall isn't active (Avira doesn't recognize other firewall, only win default and their own).

 

[timeless]

cheers..

still installing the 9meg prerequisite update 33mins later.. these updates are annoying.

 

[copiman]

Your title for your post interested me so I read on. I have had a lot of issues with updates after a clean install. Recently I had one for Vista so I went to the sister site of this forum. There I received help. Since then I can get through updates after a clean install pretty fast.

Here is my thread where a member (lmacri) helped me:
Solved Current tips on updates

In post # 3 of the thread it mentions "Search for Windows takes forever". Here is where he sent me.
Search for Windows Updates takes forever? - A possible solution

This has been extremely helpful I don't dread doing updates after a clean install any more. It really works well. Hope you find it helpful as well.

Be sure to turn off automatic updates as a first step prior to installing the first table. Also you will only need the last Win 7 update in the last table. After that click check for updates on the left side of the box and you will get updates pretty quick.

 

[timeless]

thanks for the information, getting allot of useful info tonight.

on another note, left the laptop seems it crashed while l was sorting out one of my daily chores, came back it seems to be running scan disk.. lm half wondering if the drives on its way out as well.. its 9% through one of the scans and there seems to be quite allot of file record segment unreadable errors.

 

[Megahertz07]

Back to post nº1, you said it was almost unusable. You may consider now as a HDD failure.

 

[timeless]

indeed, originally l was met with a corrupted registry, managed to boot it tho there was so much in the background it was almost impossible to use unless l went in via safe mode..

its been so much more usable since reinstalling, tho l was having the same issue lve experienced a few times with windows updates taking ages more than expected, tho l didnt expect to be met with scan disk when l came back up stairs, admittedly once ld had everything installed l would have ran some disk maintenance and checks but l was hoping to have everything installed and the disk imaged for future restoration purposes.

l guess lm still hoping to do the same, but will see how it goes after this scan disk. in the meantime l guess l'll price up a hard drive and see what the owner wishes to do.

 

[timeless]

well the drives shot.. back to being unbootable after a clean install.. scan disk decided to run after what l assume to be a BSOD while away, left it running for 12 hours it stuck on one file record and never moved further.. l rebooted and the whole OS was corrupted..

thankfully l managed to get backups before it went the way of the dodo