Clean Install Guide (works for 32-bit or 64-bit)

[stallen]

Originally Posted by Tim

Well I finally found some time to do a clean re-install following Stallen's guide. Everything worked very smoothly and it only took me about 4 hours to finish the complete reformat (what really took the longest was finding and downloading all the drivers ).

However I was unable to install the Matrix Storage Manager Driver. Did anyone else have problems with this one? Is this driver really needed?

Thanks again Stallen!
Tim

I'm glad the guide was helpful. Do you have TurboMemory? Did you install that driver? If so, then you already installed the Matrix Storage Manger Driver. The Turbo Memory Driver is a combo - TurboMemory/Matrix Storage Manger driver.

If you don't have TurboMemory, then you can try to download and install the driver from Intel if the one from Lenovo didn't work.

You should install it. It has something to do with SATA. So it could effect your hard drive performance.

[eyecon82]

I never installed the matrix storage driver; and I have had no adverse effects; I have absolutely no complaints about HD performance; I also have turbo memory and did not install the driver for it

[stallen]

Did you install any drivers? And is it possible that Windows updates installed them and you didn't realize it? I would doubt that Turbo Memory is operational (not that it does much anyway) without the driver installed.

[OldMX]

I followed the guide on my brand new Presario F700 with Home Premium (not IBM sorry guys) and everything went flawless.

I backed up the OEM activation with ABR Beta2.
Formatted the 8GB recovery partition (D:\) and moved the C:\SWSETUP folder there so after the clean install i could find all drivers easily and store a future ghost partition backup there.
Booted with my retail Vista DVD, formatted the C:\ partition and installed Vista Home Premium clean.

After the clean install, restored activation, reinstalled all drivers and ran the Vista score tool to enable the Aero interface, to my surprise, the score went from 2.3 to 3.0 on graphics and everything else stayed the same, 5.3 ~ 5.5

Now i enjoy the laptop the way i like, no more shareware or trialware, only the stuff i need and own and now laptop runs greater than new, i'm very happy with it

Cant wait to do the same on my girlfriend's Dell XPS and my brother's HP DV9000

Just wanted to share

OldMX from the [H]

[eyecon82]

Originally Posted by stallen

Did you install any drivers? And is it possible that Windows updates installed them and you didn't realize it? I would doubt that Turbo Memory is operational (not that it does much anyway) without the driver installed.

if you remember, i purposely did not install the turbo drivers....that 1 piece of hardware was solely responsible for all of my bsod's and freezes

Matrix manager goes along with that and I never installed that as well.. I looked at my windows update and there is nothing even remotely close to the matrix manager driver that could have been installed

remember I said I never installed the chipset driver? and let windows update do everything? i also found that it did install it for me...here are the details

Intel Corporation - Video - Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family

Installation date: ‎10/‎10/‎2007 6:02 PM

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Recommended

Intel Corporation Video sofware update released in March, 2007

More information:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=20054236

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub


Is that the proper one or is there even a better one out? THanks

[stallen]

Originally Posted by OldMX

I followed the guide on my brand new Presario F700 with Home Premium (not IBM sorry guys) and everything went flawless.

I backed up the OEM activation with ABR Beta2.
Formatted the 8GB recovery partition (D:\) and moved the C:\SWSETUP folder there so after the clean install i could find all drivers easily and store a future ghost partition backup there.
Booted with my retail Vista DVD, formatted the C:\ partition and installed Vista Home Premium clean.

After the clean install, restored activation, reinstalled all drivers and ran the Vista score tool to enable the Aero interface, to my surprise, the score went from 2.3 to 3.0 on graphics and everything else stayed the same, 5.3 ~ 5.5

Now i enjoy the laptop the way i like, no more shareware or trialware, only the stuff i need and own and now laptop runs greater than new, i'm very happy with it

Cant wait to do the same on my girlfriend's Dell XPS and my brother's HP DV9000

Just wanted to share

OldMX from the [H]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I always appreciate it when people post just to share a positive experience.

Yes, the ABR utility should work with just about any laptop out there. I suppose it works on desktops too. I don't see why not. Maybe oreve will chime in.

Other than that, the basics of this guide can be used for installing Vista on any system. Obviously the user would just need to install the driver appropriate for their specific make/model.

Originally Posted by eyecon82

if you remember, i purposely did not install the turbo drivers....that 1 piece of hardware was solely responsible for all of my bsod's and freezes

Matrix manager goes along with that and I never installed that as well.. I looked at my windows update and there is nothing even remotely close to the matrix manager driver that could have been installed

remember I said I never installed the chipset driver? and let windows update do everything? i also found that it did install it for me...here are the details

Intel Corporation - Video - Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family

Installation date: ‎10/‎10/‎2007 6:02 PM

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Recommended

Intel Corporation Video sofware update released in March, 2007

More information:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=20054236

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub


Is that the proper one or is there even a better one out? THanks

Oh OK, then you do have the chipset driver installed. You just didn't install it yourself. The Chipset is the Intel 965 chipset. It says it installed an "Intel Corporation" driver so there you go. Hopefully it installed the most recent. It probably did, because there have only been a few releases since the 965 chipset was released back in May.

[jimlenz]

I used the clean install guide and it worked great. The only problem I had was that I was not able to delete the hidden partition on my t61p. I want to delete it now but am not sure how. I did some research and it said to go into the bios, security and predesktop area and disable. I went into the bios, security but do not see a predesktop area.

Any help on this would be appreciated. I am running bios 1.22.

Thanks

Jim

[stallen]

Please read the F.A.Q. at the bottom of the guide:
• How do I remove the "hidden partition" on my hard drive?

It includes a link to a guide to removing the hidden partition. Did you try that?

[jimlenz]

Sorry, I missed that link. I did delete the partition. Of course, I had already did the clean install. Is there anything that I need to do next to combine the deleted partition with the hard disk? Or does it now give me the extra space since the partition is deleted?

When I go into computer management, disk management it now shows the 7gb as unallocated. How do I get that to combine with my c: drive.

Thanks

Jim

[stallen]

Yeah, that's why I put that in the guide to do it before the clean install. I think someone mentioned how to get it to combine in one of these 55 pages of this thread.

If you can't find it, someone will probably chime in. I'm not sure, really. I think there is some sort of utility that will do it.