inspiron 1520 recovery?

f

r
September 2013

Boot with the Windows 7 DVD.
You'll get the options of upgrading or to do a clean install.

If you chose to upgrade, all installed applications and drivers will be preserved as well as your settings and files.
Next, get the drivers bundle for Windows 7 from the Dell web site. Run the driver's installer and that's all.

If you chose the clean install, you'll be asked what partition or drive to use and get the possibility of formating it.
You'll get a warning that any information contained on that partition will be lost. Just go ahead and launch the formating process.
In this case, any file on the main partition will whipped clean, all settings will be set to default and there will be no applications installed unless there are some bundeled ones. You'll start with the default, Microsoft supplied, drivers. It's recomended to get more specific drivers. You should be able to get a drivers bundle from the Dell web site, under support.

Electro
June 2013

Hi thank`s for replying but how do I reformat and I have a new and unused windows 7 programme to go on as at the moment it`s running vista. Thank`s

kevo
June 2013

Was the main drive ever replaced?
Was it ever repartitioned?
Was the recovery partition ever realocated for user use?

In those cases, restoring to factory settings becomes totaly impossible. When the operation is not possible, the corresponding option is still visible, but disabled, probably in darker text, and impossible to sellect.

Now, your option is to reformat and install some operating system from scratch.

Electro
June 2013