blowing away factory image

[marcplante]

Machine is in my Sig...Asus notebook.

What are the perils of blowing away the factory image on a notebook? I understand that there are a certain number of factory utilities that I would lose, but are there items that Notebook manufacturers tightly bind to their specific implementations of Operating systems that will interfere with the functionality of a notebook if I switched to a clean OS?

If this varies by Manufacturer, is there a way to assess short of trying?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Clean OS, download individual device drivers from notebook manufacturer and/or OEM manufacturer (nVidia Drivers, etc) for anything that Windows doesn't recognize. (Assuming you're using Windows.)

I've done it bunches of times.

 

[serpretetsky]

if your planning on also wiping out the factory recovery partition make recovery discs first.

 

[n0x1ous]

I always do this when setting up new machines for users at work. If the drive dies or they screw up the install, I am going to be the one doing the reinstall anyway and I always use our volume license OS discs. No OEM bloatware and just get the drivers you need from the OEM website. Never had a problem ever and have done it probably 100 times on HP business desktops.

Clean MS Disc Install = TWIMTBI (The Way It's Meant To Be Installed)