Dell Vista Laptop Reformat and Bloatware Removal Guide

[fido666]

I'm assuming this will work on a XPS M1530 from the note on the 1st page of this thread. Will it work if the HDD has 2 "drive" partitions (as in not just a recovery or Media Direct but a C: and a D: partiton as well)?

[mrdeeno]

hey, this thread was very informative since I got my xps m1330 a week ago...props to the OP.

I have a problem after I followed the steps. The reinstall of Vista and MD went fine, but it didn't merge my recovery partition into my Vista partition. I tried using the Vista Disk Management program, but I can't do anything with it except make it its own separate volume (of limited size of 14.99gb).

My partitions look like this in this order (after deleting vol. of 14.99 restore partition):
47MB
132 GB NTFS
14.99 GB Free space
2.01 GB (media direct I am assuming).

The only thing I can do is make a NTFS 'D:' drive with the 14.99 partition.

The things I tried are this:
1) shrink NTFS partition and extend the 14.99 partition to make a "media" drive - no go...won't give me option to "extend" the 14.99 volume.

2) extend the NTFS partition to use the 14.99 partition - no go...won't give me option to "extend" the NTFS partition

3) shrink the NTFS partition to create "Unallocated" and merge with 14.99 gb - no go...it gives me 5 partitions then (the reduction amount called "Unallocated" and the 14.99GB called "free space".

My ultimate goal is to use the "free space", either combining it with the main NTFS partition or by making another drive, but making it larger than 14.99 since I can't do anything with 14.99GB.

Why won't it let me use this for anything except making a 14.99gb volume?

[PharaohSam]

cool i will use this once my new xps m1330 comes in next week.

i was wondering how you generated yoursignature image flamenko????

thanks for the help!

[Les]

Mr Deeno,

If yo followed the Clean install guide, there should be no recovery partition left. The only way you could have ended up with th 14Gb empty space is if you selected your own partition sizes (custom). In this case, ou would need to go to control panel/administrative tools ... as below and right click and format your empty space into a logical drive partition.

Also, my sig block was created by another here on the site...Im not capable of this tx.

[mrdeeno]

The only option it gives me on the 14gb partition is to "new simple volume", but that doesn't help me because I can't extend it or merge it with the larger partition...it is STUCK at 14gb.

It gives me the option to "Delete partition", but when I select that it gives me the "not enough space available" message.

I would consider doing the whole process over again, but if there's any way I can salvage the 14gb without doing it over, I'd much rather do that.

[Les]

I dont know how that would have occurred.....a 14Gb straggling volume? Thoughts here?

[mrdeeno]

I'm going to do the process over again and choose option 1 from the MD setup disc. I remember when i chose option 2, the maximum size it would let me set up C: partition was 132GB, and the leftover (the 14.99gb) was made into the D: partition that is in question.

I will let you know how it turns out. I'm actually surprised how much faster it is for Vista to reinstall vs. my last computer (which was no slouch) was with XP.

[BlindSword]

oh im glad i found this.. im going to do this process next to clean this thing out.

[crash]

Hey flamenko, it might be helpful to put a link to your Vista Tweaks thread at the end of the reinstall process (maybe just as a side note) because I frequently link to this thread and subsequently link to your Vista Tweaks thread. Even though it's in your signature, if you linked to it at the end of this guide, it would make it more obvious for the average person.

Hopefully I made sense.. it's late and I'm tired. :/

[Thund3rball]

I am probably getting a M1530 at the end of the month and definitely doing this when it arrives. Nice thread, thanks.