1505 & Dell Support

Thanks guys/gals. You saved me a lot of time trying to find my drivers on my disk. I can't find the post again, however someone said that they shipped the wrong Drivers and Utils cd's to a lot of people. I was one of them. Like others, I was dismayed at the number of processes/progs running in the background after booting up for the first time. Fortunately, I have an extra copy of XP Pro (Legal) and decided to replace MCE. After reading the online manual, I determined that as long as I didn't touch the hidden partitions, add additional partitions, and a range of other things, that I'd be able to Ctrl-F11 to restore back to the Original state of the computer. I then tested ctrl-f11 to make sure that it was functional.

After making sure that my MCE would install on another home built computer, I installed xp pro on the laptop (formatting the c: drive only). All went well except being able to find the drivers (which can be found on Dell's website - one at a time). At this point I realized I didn't have re-install disks for Sonic and the AV which was really the only two things that I could remember that I wanted. At this point I found the above post, realized that I had the wrong drivers and utils disk and entered dell chat. The first person was excellent and I should be recieving my disks shortly.

After leaving him, I decided to ctrl-f11 and restore it so that I could check out the rest of the programs that I'd be losing. Of course c-f11 didnt' work. I hopped back into chat and got an insane person ;-) I will post the chat log in a reply.

As this was what I was planning to do anyways, it isn't that big of deal to me, but for others that just attempt to get rid of the bloat, it might be a bad deal.

Inc

 

Time Details
04/11/2006 08:00:11PM Session Started with Agent (Abdul_0113639)
04/11/2006 08:00:11PM Terrence Johnson: "After reinstalling xp media center from the disk I can't ctrl-f11 to re-image my computer"
04/11/2006 08:00:17PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Thank you for contacting Dell Hardware Warranty Support. My name is Abdul and my Ref ID# 0113639."
04/11/2006 08:00:17PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Please allow me a moment to review your question. Meanwhile, may I have the name and telephone number registered with us?"
04/11/2006 08:00:22PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "While I review your question, let me inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a survey at the end of this session. You will be asked to rate our interaction on a scale of 1 to 9 with 9 being the best. In order to participate in the su"
04/11/2006 08:00:50PM Terrence Johnson: "Terrence Johnson XXX-XXX-XXX"
04/11/2006 08:01:52PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Thank you for the information, Terrence."
04/11/2006 08:02:38PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "If you have installed XP on the drive, it will format all the partition to install XP on the computer. So, the PC restore partition has been deleted now and you will not be able to use it."
04/11/2006 08:02:48PM Terrence Johnson: "I was on chat earlier with Gagandeep and he has sent out a dispatch of cd's to me. At the time I believed that I would be able to just ctrl-f11 to restore my laptop to it's original setup. Unfortunately after formatting the c: partition, and installing"
04/11/2006 08:03:23PM Terrence Johnson: "Actually the 4 gb partition is still there, I purposely left that partition alone during the install"
04/11/2006 08:04:04PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "But you will not be able to use it, you can refer to the below link for more information :"
04/11/2006 08:04:12PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1090198&l=en&langid=1&c=us&cs=19&s=dhs"
04/11/2006 08:05:56PM Terrence Johnson: "Yes, I didn't remove the hidden partition, my reformatting of the c: partition shouldn't have affected the MBR, I didn't create any additional partitions, and I didn't set up a raid config"
04/11/2006 08:07:00PM Terrence Johnson: "Can I find out if dispatch number 071049994 includes a restore cd so that I can go back to the original configuration?"
04/11/2006 08:08:45PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Terrence, I have already told you that the System 32 folder replaced after install the XP on the computer. It will not allocate the hidden partition folders any more. I have already explained things to you. There is no way to reach to hidden partition now"
04/11/2006 08:09:32PM Terrence Johnson: "What are my options then?"
04/11/2006 08:10:04PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "I would have already offered you the option if there is left any."
04/11/2006 08:10:39PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "1is"
04/11/2006 08:10:42PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Is there any other DELL hardware related issue that I may assist you with?"
04/11/2006 08:11:14PM Terrence Johnson: "Not at this time"
04/11/2006 08:11:20PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "Thank you for contacting DELL Hardware Warranty Support and allowing me the opportunity to assist you. If you still feel that there are additional DELL Hardware related concerns that need to be addressed, please contact us again at 1-800-624-9896 or Click"
04/11/2006 08:11:20PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "We will be happy to assist you again. Have a nice day."
04/11/2006 08:11:21PM Agent (Abdul_0113639): "http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/en/chat?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs"
04/11/2006 08:11:24PM Session Ended

Edit: The only thing that was edited out of this was my phone number.

 

Or I guess I could have just read SouthernGirl's sticky Post. Doh!

Anywho, Off I go to burn a copy of the hidden partition... Thanks SG.

Inc

 

WTH is "1is" ?? Seems like the tech was getting a bit rhude, but just my opinion.

 

Yeah he was rude, but then again I really don't know him... Maybe he was having a bad day. It took me almost a full day to calm down and come to that conclusion though. Fortunately, my first tech was polite and like I said it really doesn't hurt me too much that it happened.

Thanks again SG for those links and your sticky.

Inc