How do I reformat my sister's laptop without installation CDs?

December 28, 2008 1:41 PM

I have volunteered to help my sister reformat her Dell laptop over the phone. What do I need to know before I start, so that everything goes smoothly?

My sister's laptop is a several-year old Dell running Windows XP and apparently it didn't come with the XP or driver installation disks. I am pretty proficient with Windows computers, but every time I reformat, I sort of have to relearn the whole process. With that said, my questions are as follows:

1. Would the OS and drivers be found on a partition? If so, do I have to hit an F-key during startup to access it? Also, how exactly would I use the partition to initiate the reformat and later install drivers? Will I even need to install any drivers, or should XP take care of most of it?

2. If the drivers are necessary and aren't on a separate partition, I know I can go to dell.com and select the model number and download anything that is necessary. What, if anything, should we download before reformatting?

3. She is reformatting because her computer is slow and full of spyware and other crap. She also suspects someone may have installed a keylogger onto her computer. She has an external HDD that she uses to back everything up, which she does by copying the entire main hard drive directory over to the backup hard drive. Will this method of backing up her data also back up the spyware/keylogger and other crap that is bogging her computer down?

I worry about running into problems while helping her over the phone, so thanks for your help in making this go as smoothly as possible!

posted by Paul KC to computers & internet (9 answers total)

1. AFAIK Dell does not put an image of the XP install on a utility partition. All Dell machines I've worked with (hundreds) have a Dell-branded re-installation CD included. So your sister will need an XP installation CD. There should be a sticker on the computer with the Windows activation code, which will be required during the install. However, this code may not work with any old XP CD.

You should be prepared to walk her through many screens with info that will be confusing and cryptic to a casual user. I suggest you have a computer with a walk-through of screenshots available so you are prepared to 'see what she sees'. This website has some good instructions.

2. The XP install will load most of the drivers, but she can download any specific to the computer beforehand from the Dell website and save them to a flash drive or to the external hard drive.There should also be as sticker with a "Dell Service Tag", which you can use on the Dell support site to locate the proper drivers and updates.

3. If the backup includes the Windows directory then yes, it will probably contain the spyware etc. If you know your way around the Documents and Settings folder you can have her back up just her data, and then delete the windows directory from the external.

4. Your sister should also be prepared to re-install all applications she has on the computer, like MS Office, Firefox, etc. since these will obviously be torched after the reformat. Check that she has the install CDs for these too before you begin.
posted by TDIpod at 2:07 PM on December 28, 2008

If you have time to prepare yourself in advance, here's what I'd suggest.

Get all drivers as TDIpod said. Extract them, rename the directory to something she'll easily recognise, burn them on a CD. Mail it to her. There are so many versions of different drivers that it'll save your sanity.
As for the wireless card, I know from experience that DELLs may have up to any of 3 different type of wireless card in it.
Using this web site will let you enter the service tag and show you the full list of hardware. Should make your life easier.

As for her backup, you'll need to make sure only to retail the necessary data.
The windows directory is useless. Program Files is also useless - most applications are tied to the registry. Hopefully she saves all her stuff to the documents and settings folder.
Try to walk her through installing an FTP Server so that you can browse her HD (maybe even delete the stuff yourself)

When you're actually installing the OS, I suggest using Virtual PC to run the installation software alongside her.

I hope these tips will help you get through the steps that would be a nightmare to do over the phone.

If I may add my own opinion, I think this is a very bad idea.
Best of luck to you!
posted by PowerCat at 3:48 PM on December 28, 2008

Depending how old the laptop is it may have a Recovery partition with a image that would allow a restore of a factory fresh window install with all drivers (current at time of purchase... they will have to be updated, of course). Open Windows Explorer and check if there is a recovery partition, usually on the D: drive/partition, if so there should be some documentation on the C: drive about the restore process.
On an XP system it usually involves hitting the F11 key after the Bios screen when you see a thin blue bar at the top of the screen. That will be followed by a prompt to restore the original
system configuration. She will have to backup all of her personal data as others have described here. I have done this with a few Dells now and it is about as painless as an OS re-install can be. Good Luck.
posted by archaic at 4:04 PM on December 28, 2008

Do not restore the computer from the external hard drive. Consider a computer to be hardware and software, and a reformat kills off all the software so that a slow machine with perfectly good hardware can continue to run. These backups are "clones" of the offending software. What's vital is to get the important data, namely documents and photos/videos she cannot lose, and not copy over the rest. As a safety precaution, I'd have her isolate what she wants copied to one folder of the drive, excluding executable (no ifs, ands, or buts), and either delete or at least isolate in an archive the rest of the stuff. By isolate in an archive, I mean use 7z or Acronis to make an image, compression optional. Although viruses spread by document files are rare, scan the folder to be copied with an antivirus and antispyware program.

There should be a recovery partition, but it's likely not an install CD, but instead a clone of the configuration it shipped with, meaning all the drivers will be prepared, but it will not have the newer service packs, which take a while to download. Plus, it has the bundled software, much of it which will bog down the machine to begin with. If she can find a friend with a copy of Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or later, preferably), copy the license key and go that route, and just reformat the whole drive.

I also suggest using a virtual machine to run an installation side by side. You forget a lot of small details, and it's hard to get people to find and mention relevant details over the phone. I know my process is complicated, but I think other options would either decimate her irreplacable stuff, or offer solutions not much better than what she had before. Of course, the restore will keep the computer running the same as when she bought it.
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:30 PM on December 28, 2008

I just want to thank everyone for the incredibly detailed and helpful replies!
posted by Paul KC at 5:25 PM on December 28, 2008

Make sure you have a valid and working Windows XP CD key. Without that, you won't be able to activate the OS. There are utilities available online to figure out the key she's currently using. Jot that down... I think you get 3 installs per key on a personal copy of XP.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 7:44 PM on December 28, 2008

First off -- you might be able to use this page and not do the re-install, though I surely don't like the sound of anyone setting a keylogger on her machine; does she know where this person lives? If he or she is in Austin, shoot me an address and I'll go burn their house down...

This is a great page which has a step by step walk-through of the whole process, with plenty of links to free software to help you in this.

I have owned a few Dell laptops, maybe 2 1/2 years old, which came with partitions on them, which I found very, very annoying, as Dell used to give the disks. If you reload from that partition, it'll be an exact mirror of the puter as it shipped, with all the bloat, so go out and get a copy of PC Decrapifyer, which is a great piece of software, strips off all extraneous garbage -- I'd recommend it to anyone with a new puter or even one that hasn't yet been stripped of all the garbage that came on it, gives you a list of all the software on the machine and also removes it completely; have your sis read off the list of programs that show up and tell her which ones to check, she hits enter and it's a done deal.

Last summer I read somewheres online that Dell had gotten a lot of complaints and had started shipping disks with their puters again, I called and once they established I was/am the guy who bought the machine they sent me not the 'entire install' which would contain all the trashware along with the OS; they sent me the OS on one disk, the drivers on another, another disk containing the other software but not the bloatware. If your sister is the original owner and is not pressed to have this done ASAP, this would be the way to go. I got the disks in a couple of days; personally, I think that Dell rocks.

Regardless which method you choose, you're going to spend some time uploading all of the security patches and upgrades from Micro$oft.

Make sure she gets anti-virus (I'd recomend AVG Free) and anti-malware (I sortof like Windows Defender, a MS product that seems pretty dang good) onto that machine ASAP. Set her up with two accounts, one with Administrator rights and one without, and tell her to cruise the internet with the account that does NOT have admin rights, as this helps prevent anyone from getting anything installed on the machine. Maybe overkill but I don't think so and it's easy to set up, especially if you set it up right at the start and she gets all of her preferences all set on the non-admin account; she'll not use the Admin account unless she has to, as it'll be foreign to her, which is what you want, as her go-to geek bro.

Have fun!
posted by dancestoblue at 8:20 PM on December 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Agree with everything dancestoblue said except for the goodness of Windows Defender, which in my experience causes more problems than it solves. AVG 8 Free does a fairly competent job of dealing with spyware on its own; I don't believe adding Defender to a machine that already has AVG 8 would make it work better.

The most effective anti-tampering measure available to those who insist on sticking with Windows instead of switching to a usually far less troublesome alternative doesn't actually involve installing security-related application software: it's the Limited Accounts facility built into Windows itself. Once you've got up to the installation step of creating your initial user account, create a single account called Admin. Don't create any other accounts during installation. Set the Admin account up like this, then use the User Accounts control panel item to make limited accounts for day-to-day computer use.

Even if your sister is the only one who is going to end up using this computer, she should have two user accounts: Admin, which gets used for computer housekeeping (installing and removing software or drivers, defragging the hard disk, spyware scans) and a limited account in her own name that gets used for everything else.
posted by flabdablet at 5:23 AM on December 29, 2008

An update to anyone who comes across this thread in the future looking for help reformatting:

My sister's 3-year old Dell laptop did have a partition with Dell PC Restore by Symantec. Basically, it contained an image of her system as it shipped, complete with the bloatware. We opted to do this method over reformatting, as it only takes about 10 minutes to do and has a lot less potential for headaches.

We then ran the PCDecrapifier mentioned by dancestoblue to uninstall most of the bloatware.

Information about the Dell PC Restore by Symantec can be found at Dell's support website by searching for "Dell PC Restore" at Dell.com.

Thanks again for the help everyone!
posted by Paul KC at 10:53 AM on December 30, 2008