Dell hard drive format question

[ComputerNut]

This has been bugging me for awhile now. Sooner or later, im gonna have to make a clean start with my dell system and reformat the hard drive (my best method after the OS goes all out of proportion :) ). But my question is this, does formatting the hard drive myself void my warranty? They do give all the CD's necessary to make a reinstall, but i just want to make sure that I have the ability to do that within my warranty period. My parents did spend a good 300 bucks on that warrantly i sure dont want to make them angry by voiding it!

[mairving]

No, it has been my experience that it won't. It would essentially be the same as putting in a recovery CD and running a restore.

[ComputerNut]

Thats good. cause the list of failing programs is beginning to grow on my list. including the OS. Hehe, im beginning to get rather impulsive on the decision to format the HDD as the quick solution. Good thing i bought that 160GB hdd!

[QuickSilver]

Do you actually have a full Windows disk?

[ComputerNut]

Yeah they included a full operating system disk. They also included the driver cds for the sound card and a support disk for the system. plus cds for the included software

[Panama Red]

If you have a true XP disk, no need for a reformat. Just do a repair of the existing installation.

[QuickSilver]

Wow! Surprising that you actually get a full disk! Cool!

[glc]

Dell provides a full CD, but it will only install if it sees a Dell bios. It can be used to repair, it boots to the standard XP blue setup screen. It's not a restore CD, it has no drivers or apps. They provide a system resource CD with all the drivers, and separate CD's for reinstalling the factory installed apps.

[ComputerNut]

Yep! your right on target glc! thats the stuff I got :) . anyway I might try Panama Red's suggestion, and do a repair install. see if it helps.

[wolfie]

i might be wrong,but if you do it that way wont you still have some of those bad programs on it? if you do a clean intall it would clean the drive. and be like day one when you got your computer.

wolfie

[QuickSilver]

Wolfie is right about that.

[ComputerNut]

yeah i think that wolfie is right about that. ive tried a repair install and im still getting those errors. and my system hasnt really improved since. its basically been the same before i reinstalled it. anyway, i guess ill slowly move what i want to keep to my 2nd hard drive (I have an extra 160 GB at my disposal! :) ), and wipe the slate clean. Seems like the best decision for me now.

[raftero]

i have a dell laptop i had to re- install the xp os. as glc said its a real disk, but it's a bit confusing on the installing drivers(at least to me, it is different from what i'm used to on drivers etc.), you use their driver and utilities disk if you can figure it out, finally called dell and they were very professional and helpful. got it done and left out all the trash that came in original setup. am very satisfied with the laptop and the dell service.

[ComputerNut]

Yeah, i figured the other driver installations would be on the support CD. im not too bad with support CD's so I doubt ill have a hard time figuring it out. And im not too concerned with the Expansion slot devices like the sound card (live! 5.1 driver CD provided), and the video card (ati radeon 9800 seems to be automatically recognized in xp, so im good there! :) )

[Matt_Smi]

I re-installed windows on my Dell last night/this morning, I also called tech support (at 3:00 in the morning) for help with installing the drivers and such, the person I talked too was very friendly and helpful. I also did not bother to re-install a bunch of that junk that I never used but came on my computer originally. If you system is running poor I would say go for it, it is really not that bad when you have an external hard drive. I believe it is recommended you re-install windows annually anyway.

[wolfie]

ComputerNut: do you put in the ati drivers for your card, you dont use the ones off xp do you?

[ComputerNut]

well i formatted the hdd, and the installation of XP went perfectly. yay!


ComputerNut: do you put in the ati drivers for your card, you dont use the ones off xp do you?

As it turns out the ATI video drivers were included with the rest of the drivers on the Dell Resource CD. i was mistaken that XP automatically recognized the video card. it only recognized it cause the drivers were already installed in the first place.