Vista: Reformat + Reinstall, or just Reinstall?

[darksaber]

Will there be any performance increase if I reformat my 1420's hard drive before reinstalling Vista, or should I just reinstall Vista without reformatting?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm reinstalling Vista on a brand-new laptop that just arrived. I just want to remove the bloatware.

[thevjm]

There would probably be some sort of performance boost because you wouldn't have any programs on it, but when you re-install everything it will probably be the same. (unless you remove a lot of spyware or something)

[Les]

There is no difference. When you insert and reinstall a clean version of Vista, you are erasing the entire hard drive in any case.

There is no difference at all.

[HCW]

Reformat it's a no brainer

[omidomid]

Reformat and then install is always the safer and better way to go for an OS (unless you're doing it on a different partition). It also depends on the vista cd you're using. There's a difference between the "Restore to factory settings" cd and a normal vista cd you'd buy. The first one usually has a bunch a junk on it like aol trials etc. that came with your computer. Not owning a 1420, I wouldn't know though. May I ask why you're reformatting?

[darksaber]

I just received my laptop in the mail and want to get rid of the bloatware the right way.

By the way, where's a Vista reformat + reinstall guide? I've searched NBR and NBF, to no avail.

[Les]

Did you get a Vista disk with your system? There is nothing on Dell Vista disks but the program.

Insert it in the drive, reboot, F12, boot from disk and clean install...

There is no need to do anything else.

You will then have to go to Dell support/drivers and enter your service tag for the latest required drivers to install. They will also be on a system disk but may be outdated already.

[Les]

I cant remember that but all you have to do is as i wrote above...

put the Vista disk in/F12 on flash screen/boot from disk/clean install....then reinstall drivers from the support site. Theres nothing else.

[darksaber]

Thanks, flamenko. Only one problem: after I boot from Dell's Vista Reinstall CD, it doesn't give me an option to reformat the hard drive. Instead, it takes me to a Vista reinstallation screen.

Shouldn't I be able to follow SouthernGirl/Amber's "Guide to Reformatting and Installing XP" to reformat and install Vista, even though it was written for XP?

[Les]

You dont need to reformat as it erses the hard drive when you reinstall the clean copy of Vista...

You dont have any reason to reformat...its doing the same thing.