Latitude E6510 Owner's Lounge

100$ to tell you to re-install Windows.
If they kicked you there, that means something screwed up Win7, and is best to re-install.

Already you spent more time on that issue than what it would to re-install Windows and restore your backup and re-install all your porgrams.

 

As long as you are installing onto the same hard drive, a clean install will move your files to a folder called Windows.old and it's trivial to move your data to the right place afterward.

 

An excellent point. Right you are, GoodBytes. I think I'm going to follow your advice, pending one more response from an MS support engineer on their "Answers" forum.

If and when I do, I'll be checking Device Manager for the IEEE after each and every friggin' install and patch.

 

Only if you run the Win7 setup FROM the current Windows, or doing an upgrade from an unsupported upgrade path (XP to Win7 or Vista 32-bit to Win7 64-bit or Vista 64-bit to Win7 32-bit)

 

I don't think that's true. I've booted from the DVD and done a custom install, and it still puts all the current data on the drive into a Windows.old folder.

Of course, anyone doing this should double check to make sure!

 

Ah yes sorry.

Ok so it goes like this:
- It moves your old Windows setup into a folder Windows.OLD as you mentioned, if you have the space. Else the setup will inform you that there is no enough space to install Windows 7.

- If you want to remove everything or need more space on your drive/partition, click on the format button, which will erase everything.

I got confused for a moment, as, well for one it's been a long time I installed Windows 7, and I did format my partition.

 

You might try to download a Linux live CD, such as Ubuntu, and boot to that and see if it works. I'm no expert in using Firewire on Linux, but I would guess that it should work and with the LiveCD you don't need to reinstall anything.

Much of the point of doing a clean install involves formatting the hard drive, otherwise you're just making a bigger mess. That's why it's usually said to backup everything before doing a clean install.

 

Well, I'll be damned. I did the reinstall last night. The first tech I spoke with last week was saying that I should do the reinstall as a last resort as I wouldn't want to spend my holiday weekend reinstalling and reconfiguring. The software tech I spoke with yesterday was also talking about a reinstall as if it were the last ditch effort, after we were going to try 10 other steps that he laid out subject to me forking over my credit card (which I obviously didn't do).

I also didn't want to reinstall for all those reasons. Boy was I wrong. Thanks to GoodBytes for prodding me.

I had never done a clean install after receiving the E6510; just ran with what came pre-installed as I didn't think it was overly junked up with too much 3rd party software. So, last night, I put in the Dell Windows 7 DVD and, hoping that it would work, selected the Upgrade version, even though I was reinstalling the same version. Worked like a charm. All of my software, settings, and the like, minus a couple tweaks (like my desktop picture) came back after the reinstall. It only took a couple hours while I was doing other things with occasional checking in by me to click here and there.

The best part: IEEE 1394 Host Bus Controller is back and operating beautifully, as is the eSATA port. Whatever conflict was there is gone.

Feeling pretty dumb for not having done it earlier. But, then again, it is counterintuitive and everyone else (at least the techs) made it clear that it was a last resort because of all the time I would have to put in thereafter. Dumb or not, I'm at least happy!

 

Guess I should've read orev's comment about a clean install. Does that mean I'm in for trouble and have a Windows 7 "big mess" on my hard drive now?

 

I've heard that installing as you have done is not bad, but during the process Windows tries to port over all your installed programs and everything to the new install. I have not used this method myself as it leaves uncertainty in my mind.

As an IT pro, this makes me uneasy as MS does not have a good track record of doing this kind of thing, and you also miss the opportunity to clean out all the junk. However, many people have used this method and apparently it works well enough.

I'd say that if you have the time to do a full wipe, it's probably worth it, but otherwise if you're not having any major problems, you can wait until you really need to. Just make sure you backup everything if you do a full wipe.