Clean install on the new Dell

Hello!

Here's the story. I'll have to install OS, drivers and other software for a friend of mine who's going to buy Dell Inspiron N5040. He opted out of the inclusion of Windows 7 so I'm guessing I'll be getting the laptop with empty HDD plus his own Windows 7 64-bit disc and Dell's drivers/software disc. Now, as I only have like day or two to do this before he leaves the country and because I myself have only dealt with desktop computers then I need to know if there's something specific to laptops I should be aware of?

1) I'm hoping it's just changing the DVD in the BIOS to first boot device, inserting the Win7 disc, setting the partition size for the OS and installing it. Then setting up other partitions in the Windows itself.

2) Then the drivers. This part I'm not sure about. On my desktop it's simple, after OS install you only need video and sound drivers and you're good to go. But in this case?

3) And lastly any laptop specific application that I should install?

Specs:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core P6200 2.13GHz
Intel GMA 5700MHD
4GB DDR3 1333MHz
320GB 5400RPM

 

That's pretty much it, but make sure you have a backup of the basic drivers such as the graphics drivers and wireless/ethernet drivers on to a USB stick just in case Windows 7 don't find it initially to save time. Also during the partition screen don't forget to load up the Intel RST AHCI driver before actually installing Windows too. Make sure to extract the relevant package (x64 = 64 bit, x86 = 32 bit) and place them in a folder on the USB stick so you can load these files during installation.

Windows 7 generally does a good job of finding most drivers though some notebooks tend to have the odd unique driver. For most you should be able to decipher the obvious ones such as the Ethernet Controller = Ethernet for example. From my mind the obscurely named "Base System Device" tends to mean the card readers generally. You can use your initiative and copy the Device ID's of the missing drivers from the device manager and search it up on Google for clues too.

This is dependant on what your friend want to have. If you want to have a good, simple yet free antivirus that requires low maintenance from the user then MS Security Essentials tends to be good enough. The rest such as office, games, music players etc. is down to preference from your friend. Hope this helps!

 

Ok thanks, wouldn't have known to do that. Though not sure I entirely understand what it's about but what would happen if you'd not install them during setup?

 

Nothing bad will happen if you forget, it would just use Microsoft's base AHCI SATA driver instead. Some hard drives perform better with the Intel RST drivers on (in an Intel notebook obviously) but not all the time though.

If you want them back on however you can always install the Intel RST ACHI driver later but the last time I tried (which is a while back) you are forced to install the Intel RST software on top to overwrite the MS AHCI driver which is a bit unnecessary if you wanted the basic driver only. But it's up to you whether you want to put this on, if everything works fine as it is then it isn't really top priority to overhaul a working system already.

 

I see, seems that installing from the USB during Windows setup is then the better option.

 

I got my Dell Studio XPS on Saturday and after copying my files to the data drive I did a clean install. I was a bit nervious when windows 7 finished installing and it was still in vga mode. Also I had no sound or internet connection either. I then pulled out the dell drivers disc and I had to install the drivers from there. I did not like how some of the installer software like the wifi loaded junk on startup. I then found out after installing the chipset drivers first I could go into device manager and anything that had a conflict just say I had the driver and browse to the c:\drivers folder. That installed all my missing drivers. Glad I did not delete that folder.

By the way this is my first Dell laptop. I owned there desktops and even when I did a clean install on my mothers computer windows loaded all the drivers but I guess with laptops with the different hardware it uses it is different.