DEll inspiron mini 10 recovery/factory reset problem

Lifeforms

Hi,
my mum owns a dell inspiron mini 10 (netbook) bought almost 3 years ago. basically she wants to sell it on, but we wanted to do a factory reset before selling it.

We have a problem in that we have no cd's cus none came with it (has no cd/dvd drive as its a netbook) and there appears to be no recovery console available. The usual suspects don't work F8 and repair, control and F11 etc. It seems that at some point Restore points were turned off, so I Can't even restore it way back to some time where we've not used it.

Contacting Dell they demand we buy restoration CD's for it at a nice hefty cost of £31. I object to this, if you google the Inspiron 10, it's a common problem that people can't restore this netbook back to the start. So they've basically supplied a netbook, with no way or access to an os.

There is a "hidden" partition on the HDD, which I'm assuming has OS but i can't really tell with the size of it, or access it (dunno how) so we don't know if they're corrupt. Netbook hasn't been changed i.e. formatted hdd to partition ourselves at all, so we haven't done anything to that partition.

What can we do? surely dell have to provide a way to actually recover with an OS. They're absolutely insistent that we have to buy their CD's. But it's not like we lost them, or formatted the computer to get rid of the recovery partition. They simply didn't provide a way to recover it.

SimbaSimon

Lifeforms wrote: »

Hi,
my mum owns a dell inspiron mini 10 (netbook) bought almost 3 years ago. basically she wants to sell it on, but we wanted to do a factory reset before selling it.

We have a problem in that we have no cd's cus none came with it (has no cd/dvd drive as its a netbook) and there appears to be no recovery console available. The usual suspects don't work F8 and repair, control and F11 etc. It seems that at some point Restore points were turned off, so I Can't even restore it way back to some time where we've not used it.

Contacting Dell they demand we buy restoration CD's for it at a nice hefty cost of £31. I object to this, if you google the Inspiron 10, it's a common problem that people can't restore this netbook back to the start. So they've basically supplied a netbook, with no way or access to an os.

There is a "hidden" partition on the HDD, which I'm assuming has OS but i can't really tell with the size of it, or access it (dunno how) so we don't know if they're corrupt. Netbook hasn't been changed i.e. formatted hdd to partition ourselves at all, so we haven't done anything to that partition.

What can we do? surely dell have to provide a way to actually recover with an OS. They're absolutely insistent that we have to buy their CD's. But it's not like we lost them, or formatted the computer to get rid of the recovery partition. They simply didn't provide a way to recover it.

What operating system did it come loaded with? The Dell CDs are pretty generic apart from being Windows XP Home/Windows Vista Business/etc so you may be able to borrow a friends CD if you knew someone with the same OS.

SteveJH200

If the operating system is still okay, you can copy any files you want to keep and then delete them. Download Ccleaner and run the 'Wipe free space' facility and this should ensure that none of your personal info can be read.

Does the Mini 10 have a conventional hard disc? I have a Mini 9 with a solid state drive that failed so once replaced I reloaded XP using an external optical drive.

Lifeforms

This is our problem, they've suggested to borrow an XP Home ( I believe it is) CD, but we don;'t know anyone with that, as most are on Win 7 or now have recovery CD's which is the norm I guess.
They also suggested this with another laptop, and when we tried it, didn't work. so naturally we're hesitant to do it that way.

conventional HDD.
Yeah the OS is ok, but to save time uninstalling, cleaning etc, we just wanted to reformat and recovery windows so that it had a fresh install, factory reset persay to sell it on. okay it's not worth much, but it means my mum can buy a tablet which is more suited to her.

macman

Is this what you already tried?

http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/tips/2011/01/restore-dell-inspiron-mini-10-to-factory-settings

Lifeforms

Yep, The issue is:

a blue bar with https://www.dell.com appears at the top of the screen. Immediately upon seeing the blue bar

This does not appear at all, so you can't do Control and F11, it just loads into OS immediately. If you google, this problem exists for quite a few people, and F8 does not work because it's not vista and doesn't have a repair my computer option. Interestingly when you do support on the dell site, it says specifically that you can't do it, and that particular laptop/netbooks have to do a manual install, using the CD's, which weren't shipped with them. (thus Dell want to only sell you them, and have no interest in any help at all)
I wouldn't mind paying for cd's if we'd screwed the OS recovery partition up, but I object when they've just provided no way to do it, aside from having to pay more more to buy their recovery CD's.

macman

I'd just settle for doing a thorough clean up and deletion, overwrite the free space as suggested.

Lifeforms

Apparently the phone call made by my mum to Dell has been passed on to "higher" people, so we'll see what they come up with. They reduced the price to £19, but wouldn't move from that.

As with that link I was under the impression that anyone who sells computers with pre-installed OS on it should provide a way to restore the OS. That would include a recovery software program to do it, which they've clearly failed to do so with these, as well as a few other, netbooks.

TakeThis

I have the disc, but have no way to get it to you. £19 is not an outrageous figure.

Otherwise I have the common or garden XP Home SP2b, but then you'll have to activate it manually, as well as update it to SP3.

Lifeforms

We have tried the borrow an installation disc before under advice from dell on another laptop, upon wiping the computer, installing it, and trying to activate it/change the number it wouldn't work. Upon another dell call we were told of course it wont... I don't trust them.

I think now it's riled my mother up (who is normally reasonably laid back), so she's trying to stick to reporting them (:o) to microsoft and whomever else she can find out about, unless they provide a way to restore this netbook. I think it's gone beyond me now! She is now in the mindset that they sold her an unrecoverable netbook unless you go into the demand of money from dell. Woman scorned etc!

Will post what dell say, if they dare call her back

TakeThis

Lifeforms wrote: »

We have tried the borrow an installation disc before under advice from dell on another laptop, upon wiping the computer, installing it, and trying to activate it/change the number it wouldn't work. Upon another dell call we were told of course it wont... I don't trust them.

I think now it's riled my mother up (who is normally reasonably laid back), so she's trying to stick to reporting them (:o) to microsoft and whomever else she can find out about, unless they provide a way to restore this netbook. I think it's gone beyond me now! She is now in the mindset that they sold her an unrecoverable netbook unless you go into the demand of money from dell. Woman scorned etc!

Will post what dell say, if they dare call her back

The DELL disc is best. But which disc have you used exactly?

It has to be a Windows XP Home OEM disc. Also, Microsoft have blocked the COA keys on the stickers from online activation, so you need to do a phone activation.

Anyway, try the new disc and remember that you you have to install from boot.