About the AHCI Driver?

AHCI Driver...I heard about it on the making a clean install on a dell laptop. Now I am a total noob right now to laptops and i believe I finally made my choice to go with a dell xps1530. How do you "expand" the AHCI driver on a flash drive? Do I just drag and drop the installer into the flash drive or is there more to it? I want to make sure before getting the laptop...

 

From what I understand, if you are doing a clean install with the Vista disc provided by Dell, then you will NOT need to do any preliminary AHCI driver installs.

 

The AHCI driver that you download from the Dell support website will be a .exe file. Simply download it to a computer, then double-click it. It will ask you which directory to expand the files to. Select a folder in your USB FLASH drive, and the files will be "expanded" into that folder in your USB FLASH drive.

During vista formatting and reinstallation, there will be a step that has a button labelled "load driver." Simply click this button, and select the folder in your USB FLASH drive that contains the expanded AHCI files. The Vista installation will then install the drivers, and follow that with installing the Vista OS.

 

ok ty guys for the help but b4 i give rep to kinetic...is the Vista disc supplied from Dell a CLEAN install of Vista or does it install the bloatware/crapware/whateverwarethatwedontpayattentiontowhenwefirstgetourlaptop-ware that comes with the laptop when you first buy it?

Also, when it asks you for the activation key during the clean installation...do i need to enter it???

i remember on my current vista machine...with an upgrade disc, i did a clean install booting from the CD without the key then another with the key within the OS to achieve a "Clean" install (I hope you know what I mean otherwise disregard this clean install explanation)???

 

I guess no one has the answer to my above question -_-

 

No if you use the Dell discs it only installs the OS . The other disc contains all of your drivers and apps installed on your system.

As far as activation goes it's not necessary because any Dell computer doesn't need to be activated. This applies to Vista or XP.

 

wow are you serious about the activation...is it still safe to activate it anyway ??? I am super paranoid about this after what I have heard about Windows Genuine Ordeal and I have had my experiences like that O_O

 

When I did a clean install on my 1330 there was NO prompt asking me to activate Vista. This is assuming you use the disc that came with your laptop. There will be absolutely no bloatware after the clean install.

 

That's the key. Darthsnipe you can register the OS if that makes you feel better but if you right click on My Computer you'll see at the bottom of the screen "Windows is Activated" (Vista).

If you try and activate Windows it will tell you it's already activated. The reason you don't have to worry about activating is because the Dell Windows disc looks for a Dell BIOS. If it sees the Dell BIOS then the OS will automatically activate once you finish your install.

 

cool beans ppl cool beans and thanks for all your help...I will rep the rest of you when i get my chance to rep again (unfortunately too much repping for one day lol)