Formatting Latitude D430

[Alessandro]

I'm tired of my D430 running sluggishly. I've built comps and I have a desktop running an overclocked Duron 1.6 with Win2k running way faster than my dual-core D430. Dell installs so much crap on it that it makes me sick. However, I'm nervous that there will be something proprietary that I'll miss and then won't be able to boot. Formatting/reinstalling XP then installing network drivers and downloading the rest should be sufficient, right? Just making sure there's nothing particularly funny about Dell setups and proprietary software, and for support to calm my paranoia.

 

[disports]

yeah you'll be fine. you might as well download the necessary drivers off of their website and then do it.

 

[Navid]

Recover the XP key from your installation before you re-install.
If you use the key from under the laptop, which is a different key, you will have to call Microsoft. Not a big deal anyway.

Download the chipset and network driver before you start the installation.
The last thing you want is to end up with a setup that needs a network driver to be able to connect to the internet to download the driver ....