Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

gregrocker, thanks for the tutorial, I am planning on putting these instructions in motion this weekend. Does this remove all of the unnecessary bloatware too? Again, thank you for the step-by-step instructions.

Yes.

Be sure to Delete all partitions during install (unless it suggestes to preserve one in the Special Notes to Owners at the end) to Create and Format New as you wish, or if you have no partition scheme in mind just click Next and the installer will do it for you and begin install.

Be sure to follow steps for how drivers are handled in Win7 getting online to immediately run all rounds of Important and Optional Windows, after enabling Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3)

Let us know how it goes.

This is illustrated in Steps 7 and 8 of Clean Install Windows 7

Update: Thanks people. My going from Hewitt-Packard to Standard Windows 7 referenced in this Forum went rather well but ... would recommend: depending on experience level, save the two/three partitions that came with the PC from the manufacturer until the next time you do a reload as the original partitions can give you a sense of security if case you run into problems. May save some frustration.

Most Recovery partitions will not run after reinstall, especially if they are triggered using the F8 Advanced Boot Options which are completely reinstalled with Win7.

Even some HP's and Acer Recovery Partitions which use dedicated Fkeys will not boot after reinstall, though we can help you try to manually run them by marking Active to trigger the key, or by mounting the Boot.wim file from Win7 using EasyBCD to add Recov to a Dual Boot menu.

As to the Factory OEM partitions the only ones which have any useful function after reinstall is Dell OEM Diagnostics tools which as stated at the end of tutorial will continue booting from F12 if it boots now.

Was there any specfic "frustration" you or anyone you know experienced?

Not really, I never looked back but I have friends that are really shaky about things like this as they paid for OS and computers cause lots of panic if they can not get to their emails. Most questions for the inexperienced is "how do I get back to what worked". Course, most all of us need a "fall back plan"
?

That's why it's specified to make the Recovery Media which reinstalls the entire HD just as it was when it left the factory. In addition a secondary backup using Win7 or another Backup Imaging app is recommended in case the Factory Recovery fails - as it sometimes does before the HD is wiped, for example.

However I can't remember a case where any user has had to go back to the Factory Preinstall if they worked with us to resolve any issues. The claim that drivers can't be found has never proven true, even reinstalling a different bit-version. Normally people who fear this are still stuck in XP era and don't yet realize this is a driver-complete OS in the installer and via optional Updates except in the rarest cases.

There is one thing the new reload did I can not fix.
One of my USB drives, a Fantom 2tb HD, all of a sudden become READ ONLY, not the folders but the entire Disk.
The net says:
Look at Registry, Did
Look at Permissions Did
Owner is EVERYONE.
I stopped Sharing it
I went to the Device Manager, executed: Management Console, stilll READ ONLY
There last suggestion was only to re-format

Do you have any tricks?
Do we know why it would make itself READ ONLY and refuse to revert?

I have about a dozen Fantoms just like this one but they are still: Basic, online.

Not sure what could cause that, probably something related to the drive. Doublecheck you are fully permissioned by running Take Ownership Shortcut . If that fails move the data off the external HD, wipe it with Diskpart Clean Command then repartition in Disk Mgmt.

What is the exact difference between that and SAS?