Dell Laptop Inspiron 6400 - how to make recovery disc?

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

We have a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop (about 10 years old). We'd like to wipe it, clean up and restore.

It did not come with recovery discs and there is supposed to be a recovery partition on the laptop.

BUT we would like to use DBAN and reinstall.

Pls can anyone advise if there is a way to make a bootable disc copy of the partition contents so we can definitely reinstall the original settings after running DBAN.

Any idiot proof instructions very gratefully received. Laptop does have a DVD drive which can write and we have blank discs.

Thx in advance

NiftyDigits

Supply details of the Service Tag

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

I did find that website by googling and put in the numbers I could find on the sticker on the bottom but it brought up a completely different desktop computer and not my laptop, so I'm assuming it is maybe too old and no longer on Dell's system? Anything else I could try, pls?

Many thx.

NiftyDigits

Let it automatically detect it and report back.

Wgat is the Service Tag that you are entering?

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

Thanks. I tried the auto detect but that wouldn't work as it said it needed something else which wouldn't load.

I'm not sure what the service tag is but I've tried two of the numbers from the sticker:

"U7670" or
"X11-45374"

Other than this, there is also a "product key" number - but this is miles longer than the 5 or 7 digits Dell say it should have.

Then there is another long number under the barcode.

Thx.

waterwatereverywhere

Hi again,

Just thought of a possible alternative - we used to have a Dell Desktop which we no longer have, but we did keep the discs which came with that.

Would the reinstallation CD for the desktop work OK to reinstall on our laptop?

The CD reads "operating system - reinstallation CD MS Windows XP Home Edition". Is there any way we could test it before running DBAN and removing everything?

Many thx.

macman

None of those, it's a 7 digit no, marked (strangely enough) 'Service Tag':
http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/uk/en/ukbsdt1/TroubleShooting/ProductSelector

dogmaryxx

Open command prompt
Go to Start > Run and type cmd to start your command prompt.

In the command prompt copy/paste the following and press Enter/Return.

wmic csproduct get vendor,name,identifyingnumber

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

I'm sorry what an absolute idiot I am - have found the service tag now - as you say, clearly marked "service tag"(!!) - on a different label lower down. It is 665DF2J.

Putting that into the Dell website brings up the drivers, so I could download all of these which will give me my drivers back, but my main concern is the Operating System (ie. Windows XP) as that doesn't seem to be there as a download - is there a way I can copy that from the hard drive/partition?

Many thx.

closed

why do you want to use dban? just factory restore it, and wipe free space using ccleaner

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

Would like to use DBAN as we've heard this is the safest way to remove personal data info as ultimately we plan to sell on. Have used it for online banking and other sensitive stuff so don't want to take any chances.

But don't want to start the DBAN process only to find we then cannot reload the operating system and drivers.