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Return to Factory Settings problems

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Eileanbeag

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Posted November 26, 2012 at 1:52PM

I have a Dell530 Inspiron which came with Winbdows Vista. I upgraded to Windows 7. I am pretty certain I have a virus and wanted to return to factory settings but this option is not now available. I have disc that came with the machine and I made a repair disc for Windows 7. Can I use either of these to format my computer?

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Ventad

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Posted November 26, 2012 at 2:43PM

You have not said wether you have tried any virus scanning , to format your disc will get rid of any photos/letters etc. even if you have since copied them to another disc you might still have copied the virus to that disc. Plus you will have to do a lot of updating as well.

Try a System Restore to a date prior to when you think you caught the virus and also do a virus scan 1st.

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Eileanbeag

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Posted November 26, 2012 at 3:48PM

I downloaded Norton power scan and ran this but it did not sort anything. I have used system restore to take the computer back to July and this has not helped. Is there any way round this problem?

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted November 26, 2012 at 8:33PM

Windows Vista: Dell Factory Image Restore 1 Turn on the computer. When the Dell logo appears, press several times to access the Vista Advanced Boot Options Window.

2 Select Repair Your Computer. The System Recovery Options window appears.

3 Select a keyboard layout and click Next.

4 To access the recovery options, log on as a local user. To access the command prompt, type administrator in the User name field, then click OK.

5 Click Dell Factory Image Restore. NOTE: Depending upon your configuration, you may need to select Dell Factory Tools, then Dell Factory Image Restore. The Dell Factory Image Restore welcome screen appears.

6 Click Next. The Confirm Data Deletion screen appears. NOTICE: If you do not want to proceed with Factory Image Restore, click Cancel.

7 Click the checkbox to confirm that you want to continue reformatting the hard drive and restoring the system software to the factory condition, then click Next. The restore process begins and may take five or more minutes to complete. A message appears when the operating system and factory-installed applications have been restored to factory condition.

8 Click Finish to reboot the system.

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted November 26, 2012 at 8:36PM

1 Turn on the computer. When the Dell logo appears, press F8 several times to access the Vista Advanced Boot Options Window.

If you installed W7 it will read the same but the image on the hard drive it will restore form is the Vista image so it will probably reset everything back to Vista.

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Eileanbeag

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 9:32AM

Have tried that but when I get to the screen restoreimage I get scanning for image and then no image found. I do not see Dell Factory tools. Will I have to buy a new opereating system?

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Eileanbeag

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 9:43AM

Also D drive on computer where the backup files are stored shows almont full on computer but when I click on it it says the folder is empty,

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Strawballs

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 9:57AM

If you formatted when you installed then you will not have the original restore partition intact!

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 10:14AM

Have you tried running the disc that came with the machine?

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Eileanbeag

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 10:35AM

Did not format but upgraded to upgrade version of Windows 7 from Vista. Yes - have tried the origonal disc and also windows 7 repair disc but to no avail. Suppose it would be pointless using windows upgrade disc?

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted November 27, 2012 at 10:57AM

Do you have a Vista or Windows 7 disk?

and do you have a sticker on the machine with the vista serial number?

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