I am no computer expert so go easy on me please !
I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 running Vista which is about 4 years old now.
It is taking so long now from hitting the power button to when the hard drive stops running flat out so that you can actually start to use it that it is becoming a problem.
I have run disc clean, de-fragged it, run Comodo, but nothing seems to speed the start up. Is there any way of carrying out a factory re-set without the driver discs (i can't find them), or is there anything else i can do to fix it. I only use it for internet browsing so i dont really want to replace it.
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Hit F8 on the dell screen at boot, on the advanced boot options there should be a 'repair computer' option that will completely reload the machine back to factory state.
Beware you will loose all the files and settings you saved. It will be just like the day you bought it.
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I would test the hard drive too, very often laptops start to run slow because the drive is failing.
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Zero, it is now giving me the following options:
Startup Repair / System Restore / Windows Complete PC Restore / Dell Factory Image Restore
Which one should i choose?
Thx
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Dell factory image restore is the one you want, although as stated it will wipe everything on the disk.
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Thanks, all done, just got to reinstall MSE and everything else i use, then see how it is.
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And all your photos, videos, documents, etc. Hope you backed it all up first! But Zero did warn you.
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You would be amazed that I sometimes get calls to recover data when somebody has tried the factory recovery settings. Good news is that most your data is recovered, the bad news is the your hard drive is full of bad sectors :p.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 18 Jul 11 at 21:46
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Better news for Rattle is you make money out of them. Hope that Skip didn't lose any files!
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Well system restore seems to have sorted the slow start up problem anyway.
My documents are on the PC upstairs and i don't do photos so there was nothing to lose by carrying it out.
Thanks for the advice guys.
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sometimes ..... you can use a program called Recuva from www.piriform . com to get back some files, even though you think you have reformatted the drive!
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Laptop Problem - Zero
