JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Wife's DELL M101z is a mess. Needs reformatting. I go to make the recovery discs but there seems to be no option to do so, try googling and eventually read about guy talking about the same issue, he called a dell rep and the rep said because the laptop doesn't have a cd drive the recovery data is on a hidden partition on the harddrive. How can I check that is true, and if it is how would i go about wiping and re installing windows 7 from that hidden partition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Normally if there is a recovery partition, you can see a "Press S3 to enter recovery mode" message on the loading/spash screen where you'd normally enter the BIOS. Personally though, I'd sack all that shit off and do a proper, fresh install of W7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Normally if there is a recovery partition, you can see a "Press S3 to enter recovery mode" message on the loading/spash screen where you'd normally enter the BIOS. Personally though, I'd sack all that shit off and do a proper, fresh install of W7. I'm trying for a fresh install of w7, but I have no means of making recovery cd's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Do you have the licence key? Feck recovery CDs, they just restore to the point you make the CD. Use the original install discs instead. You can download the .iso files legally, I use this topic on the W7 forums. It's been there a long time and well publicised, so if it was illegal or the ISOs were dodgy, then Microsoft would have mullered them by now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Didn't come with any cds, it just told me to make the recovery cds as I usually do with a new laptop. However I can't because it's being a bitch. Returning to facotry settings using the recovery partition would be fine but there doesn't seem to be an option to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 No options on the boot menu, no options on 'recovery' from the start menu apart from one that won't let me do anything without the cd, no options to make CDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 I'd always advise avoiding any "recovery" options/media, as they fill them up with bloatware. Just do a fresh install of W7 from the original ISO, and install the drivers from the manufacturers website. You can make an install DVD by following the link I posted above, downloading the right ISO and burning it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 I don't mind the bloatware for now... also i don't currently have any means of making a cd as this laptop doesn't have a cd drive (when previously referring to 'making cd's, it usually has an option on there to use a usb drive which is what I'd plan to do). Actually yeah I'll download from those links you gave me... can you put them on a usb drive and boot with that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Yeh you can I believe. You can do it using a tool now apparently. I haven't followed this guide, but it seems to cover most stuff: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/9585/how-to-setup-a-usb-flash-drive-to-install-windows-7/ Just remember before you start, find out if the manufacturer lets you download the correct drivers from their website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Urgh, all i have is 2gb usb drives, f**k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Win7 installs froma USB are the way to go every time - buy yourself an 8Gb drive for a few quid and you're winning. With regards to drivers, most of what you're currently running will likely be ok on the new install, so get a tool called DoubleDriver (free). It'll find and make a copy of each of your current system drivers which you can then back up again once you've got your fresh install done - betweeb that and the native Win7 driver support you'll probably be good to go, perhaps with one or two additional drivers to find at a push Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 All done now, didn't save any drivers, it was so messed up i didn't have the patience to do it, but they all seemed to have installed right from the device menu with no problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 ...oh, no sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 S'all good - if you've got some form of internet on the go (which unless I'm still drunk and imagining your post is probably the case...) that shouldn't be a biggy. Get on over to the Dell support (drivers & downloads) site and make that shit work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 (edited) Yeah all sorted now. Even bought some extra ram for it for $6 so that might help with my wife's 'i got to have 20 tabs open at once' problem. Problem with it though is it has a terrible processor. Watching a 720p vid on youtube puts the CPU at 100%. It's only 2 years old and wasn't exactly super cheap. Even has a HDMI port. Thanks for all your help Muel as usual! Edited December 29, 2012 by JT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 (edited) NP dude. More RAM often helps, but also experiment with different browsers, antivirus etc. Just remember that when you have a CPU running at 100%, if you can get that down to 90% by running more efficient anti-virus and stuff in the background, that can make a big difference to the resources flash has to play with. Edited December 29, 2012 by Muel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 That was actually without any anti-virus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Well that was silly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 I'll put it on my to do list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Harrison Posted January 1, 2013 Report Share Posted January 1, 2013 The best thing you can do with a M101z is throw it down the stairs. I have one (which I no longer use), and it's out-performed by my £199 2008 Acer Aspire One. The M101z is meant to be a notebook, not a netbook, but you'd never tell half the time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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