Restore a Dell XPS Vista

Yes, if one of the USB ports, is broken, I would consider a new one also. I thought about a new one, But with the added memory, and a new USB 3 card, in my case the software upgrade was a better thought at that time.

Campfire...I was leaning that way too since it is a 2009 era...and one of 2 USB ports is broke. I called a local Geek like John suggested and they want $80 to load the $60 Version of 7 that I'd buy. Found a great 15" Asus almost like the one I have on Woot for $359!

Bite the bullet and buy a new machine. And don't pay anyone to try and restore it. Put that money into a new one. Watch Woot.com, a division of Amazon. Good deals on refurbs. A couple of friends bought laptops and PCs from there and they have been excellent.

Make sure the descriptions say "factory refurb". While I don't think that Woot sells any other that, anything else is refurbed by 3rd parties and are basically just used machines.

My processor was 64 bit, sy I installed the 64 bit version of w7 Pro. Otherwise the 32 bit mome version would be OK. I didn't want to fool with it, so I got a local PC Guru to do it for me. Should be a Guru shop in Morehead City that can handle it for you. They charged me about $150, including the software. BTW, we spent three months at Cape Lookout, drove up your way several times..

I moved my sister-in-law's HP laptop from Vista to Win7Pro about 18 months ago. She had been given a Win7 OEM copy from NewEgg as a gift.

The only difficulty that I ran into was the Win 7 install CD was 64 bit & the laptop was not. I downloaded a 32 bit iso file from Windows & made a install CD from that. The install key does not care if it is 64 or 32 bit OS.

The MS Office software loaded on the new os without any issues and the backups of all the data for Office re-loaded and ran without any issue.

I expected to run into driver issues by not using a HP install, but all the video, USB ports, and wifi all worked without any issues.

PLUS she got a computer without all the dozens of "SPECIAL OFFER" software programs that come pre-installed.

Johno02 wrote:
Original Install software is probably on a partition on your hard drive. Better yet, If you have a decent CPU, upgrade memory and install Windows7. Mine is like a new machine now.

Yes, PC companies now a days, place a copy of the OS on a partition on the hard drive but more often then not that partition gets compromised and that copy of the OS is toast / not usable. ALWAYS, the best policy when getting a new PC to get a copy of the OS on a CD or USB stick from the manufacturer soon after that new PC's purchase.

Johno02 wrote:
Original Install software is probably on a partition on your hard drive. Better yet, If you have a decent CPU, upgrade memory and install Windows7. Mine is like a new machine now.

How do I get to that partition and do a clean? But, I like your idea of going to 7. Its a fairly powerful machine for the 2009 era and I've maxed the memory. It looks like this from Amazon will work for what I need to do? CLICKY

Original Install software is probably on a partition on your hard drive. Better yet, If you have a decent CPU, upgrade memory and install Windows7. Mine is like a new machine now.

When you purchased that 2009 PC from Dell, did it come with the Windows VISTA install CD? If so use that CD to do a clean Windows VISTA install. If you do not have the CD, contact Dell and they will probably send it to you for a few $.

Hint: When you purchase a new computer, ALWAYS, immediately contact the company (Dell,HP, etc.) and tell them you want a copy of the operating system on CD or on a USB stick. They will gladly provide. Sometimes they will provide for free and sometimes they want say $15.95, etc.. Having the OS on CD or on a USB stick is a neck saver down the road when faced with situations like you are in now.