I have purchased the upgrade for my Dell Inspirion 4010N and have been attempting to create my username and login to use my account. So far, it will not recognize my key that was given to at time of purchase, The purchase customer service representatives have referred me to Dell Tech Support as the Help for my problem, Is there some coordination of my Windows 7 or something that needs to be done in order to get this backup product to work properly?? It was an additional 40.00 purchase that Dell advertised on my software that was supposed to protect me so I was hoping it would be a smooth and easy install since it would be online with no disks. I have called the number, someone put me on hold and forwarded me to another person, and then, I told them my reference number, my service tag and my problem, the person on the other line told me to wait and said that they couldn't help.

1. What Is Dell Datasafe Local Backup

Dell Inspirons, Studios, and XPS Systems use DataSafe Local Backup 2.0 as the PC Restore/Factory Image Restore option as of April 22, 2009. Dell OptiPlex. Bulletin 98082984. If neither of those options is viable, go to the Acclaim recovery media page and enter your serial number to get started. Dell Datasafe Local Backup not working - posted in Windows 7: Hi - Im really hoping someone here can help me. First - I know nothing about computers - my usual fix for comp related issues is.

And, I tried another number, forgot what it was but still a 1-800. And the person said to wait, and I waited, and waited, but I couldn't wait any longer, I said.HELLO.to get attention but.no luck. I was calling from a country called INDONESIA.

Dell don't have support here. (Or do they?) Anyway. I contacted the company dealing with payment, and the person on the email told me that this email (company) only takes care of payment, and that I should contact dell support.I emailed back that I did just that but after an hour or so (two I think) I couldn't find the appropriate webpage i.e. The support page (information) that I needed.

And, another email return after the next day. I just email back telling the person that I was disappointed. And, now I don't know what else to do.

Contents. This guide has a complimentary.

Introduction Windows 10 has an inbuilt mechanism to create edition locked vanilla flavoured Reinstallation Media. Its called a Recovery Drive. The Recovery Drive creates a FAT32 formatted USB that boots in both MBR Legacy BIOS and a UEFI BIOS with SecureBoot. There is no longer any need to download a.iso and then use a third party utility such as Rufus to make a FAT32 formatted USB. The Recovery Drive is not System Locked and can be used to reinstall Windows 10 on another PC.It is however Edition Locked.

Creating a Recovery Drive Right click the Start Button and Select “Control Panel” Select “System and Security”. Select “System Maintenance” Select “Recovery”: To get here you may also use Cortana to search for “Create a Recovery Drive”. Select “Create a Recovery Drive”: Select “Yes” at the User Account Control: Select “Next” it will take some time to make the Recovery Drive: When its ready you’ll be informed and you can select “Finish”: A quick check in Disk Management reveals that Windows 10 correctly formats the USB as FAT32 opposed to NTFS therefore the Recovery Drive works both in a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot and a Legacy MBR BIOS. This will not give the same issues as Windows 8 and 8.1 installation media.

To check in Disk Management, right click the Start Button and select “Disk Management”. The Recovery Drive is FAT32 formatted: In Windows Explorer it looks like this: Recovering from the Recovery Drive Note: I have not tested a system with multiple SSD/HDDs. Reinstallation with a Recovery Drive doesn’t give any drive options with a single drive. Its possible that it will simply select the largest drive to Reinstall on or prompt you to select the drive. If someone tests this let me know.

Take it as a warning that you may want to remove additional drives during the installation just in case. Power down your computer. Hold F12 while powering up your computer (at the Dell BIOs screen). Follow the instructions below to Boot either via UEFI or Legacy respectively. Variant A: UEFI Boot If your system is newer than 2012 its recommended to use a UEFI Boot and a GPT partition scheme; this is faster and more reliable. The boot manager should mention a UEFI Boot similar to below.

Press the ↓ arrow and select your Windows 10 Recovery USB Flash Drive and press Enter Variant B: Legacy Boot For systems older than 2012 you will have to just use the legacy boot with the MBR partition scheme which will be listed by default. There will be no mention of Legacy or UEFI Boot but the boot option will be legacy. If you wish to install Windows 10 32 Bit (unrecommended) on a 2012 or later system you will need to disable SecureBoot and enable legacy boot options. Press the ↓ arrow and select your Windows 10 Recovery USB Flash Drive and press Enter Select boot from from USB respectively.

Press any key when prompted such as “h' when it says Press any Key to boot from CD/DVD. Select “Troubleshoot”: Select “Recover from a Drive”: Here you will be offered a means to “Clean The Drive” (Wipe) or to “Just Remove my Files” (Format) the drive. Format = Assign Data to free space. The data is still there and can be readily recovered by third party recovery tools.

Wipe = Assign Data to free space and then overwrite it with junk data. This is more time consuming but I recommend it. For more details see. You will be told about the Recovery from a Drive procedure select “Next”: Windows will Recover the PC this will take a long time especially if “Clean The Drive” was selected: Windows will scan the drive before proceeding with the installation options: Language defaults will remain matching the original instalaltion. I had to change the time zone to UK however. When you have made your selection select “Next”: Read through the license agreement and select “Accept” If you are connected to an ethernet or offline the next few screens won’t show. Select your wireless network: Input your wireless password and select next: Select customise settings and press “next” once you’ve made your desired selection on each page or use the express settings: Next select “I own it” for a home PC or “My organisation” for a work PC: For “I Own It” sign in with a Microsoft Account (recommended so you can use all of Microsoft’s services in particular OneDrive).

Alternatively skip this step and sign in with a local account: The PC will configure the last stages and install Apps (which now work as Windows): You are now ready to use your PC: Windows should install all the drivers during installation especially for older hardware. You may however want to and install system drivers if they are available. What if I use a Recovery Drive on Another Device not Upgraded to Windows 10 RTM via Windows Update? You will have an unactivated installation.

You will be given two options, one to change product key and two to go to the Store. Testing notes: I used the Recovery Drive after a Diskpart → clean (to emulate some sort of software corruption).

It seems to be very similar to a Windows clean installation. Dvd copy software. All drivers were there but I’m not sure if that’s just native to Windows 10 or whether the Recovery Drive stores drivers aswell as Windows installation files. Testing needs to be done with a UEFI system however the signs are good and it seems like Microsoft have taken our feedback seriously for the Windows Media Creation Tool! I deliberately made sure my 8 GB USB was NTFS formatted before making the recovery drive. Note how the creation of the recovery drive automatically formatted it to FAT32. This should reduce many of the issues with SecureBoot/UEFI which required a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive and hence prevent the need to recommend third party utilities such as Rufus.

What Is Dell Datasafe Local Backup

It does pass SecureBoot/UEFI in my Inspiron 7347 (but I don’t want to install Windows 10 on it yet). Testing also needs to be done to see if it is system locked or whether it can be taken to another system to install Windows 10. One quick observation is that there was no prompt to enter a product key or select edition, differing from the.iso install. It is therefore likely locked to an edition. Windows 10 Insider Build 10162 test to Windows 10 Pro Build 10240 (RTM). It is true that I had never directly created the key.

I downloaded the ISO and was copying files. What amazes me even a little, is that I have two keys, of which one was new and designed for it, and the new keys are not formatted as NTFS. This would explain however why when I was using Rufus, I chose FAT32 and it worked I thought it was new for one simple reason: since October 2014 (I think), and the ability to download the ISO with 8.1 (update1) without entering a key (but only the type of OS), I had not tried. Before we had to enter his key Windows 8, and then a tip allowed to download the ISO of 8.1. I have a retail Windows 8 and before October 2014 version, my key was always refused (even for 8) t did not download the ISO. So I thought that Microsoft had changed tool at the same time that method of obtaining ISO (more the fact that my keys were not in FAT 32:)). Thanks for all the useful info.

I have reserved an upgrade to Windows 10 Home edition from Windows 7 Home edition. But I have had NO luck finding out if Windows 10 will actually remove the Windows 7 recovery / re-installation partition from my hard drive. I am trying to avoid having to create recovery ISO media for several different desktops and laptops which all have slightly different partition sizes. I am hoping the Windows 10 upgrade will leave these partitions intact, but I have not been able to find a clear answer to this anywhere, it seems like a pretty basic question for which there should be a clear answer. Windows 10 is meant to have the ability to roll back to Windows 7 however likely you won’t need to as Windows 10 works well.

However I will note that programs like Dell Backup and Recovery do not like it when the partitions are changed. Windows 10 changes these so I wouldn’t count on them still working i.e. You may be able to roll back but lose the ability to revert to your Dell factory image. Its better to make the media just in case.

Also if you downloaded in advance before they got pulled. You could also use a single Digital River.iso by deleting the ei.cfg file on the Bootable USB allowing you to install all OEM and Retail versions of Windows 7. For any major OEM system use the ABR program in advance so you can use SLP activationL. Thank you SO MUCH for explanation and the link with details of OEM SLP Activation and the ABR Program.

I have a few different model Dell Optiplex desktops which I got through Dell Refurbished. They have a Windows 7 Pro recovery / reinstallation partition. They all have Recovery Creator programs, 64-bit and x86, and a couple of them have an “installation” folder in C: which I presume was used to install Recovery Creator. I have not been able to figure out the correct way to use those “installation” files and I have no idea whether they could be used to install Recovery Creator following a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro.

My two Inspirons shipped with Dell Data Safe Local Backup but that was disastrous and the recovery disks they created never worked and Dell sent me reinstallation disks. My Latitude XT2 convertible came with a Dell Windows 7 Pro recovery / reinstallation DVD, and when I ran into driver issues I was able to successfully reinstall Windows from an external drive. I see that my XT2 and all the Optiplex models using Windows 7 Pro are activated with the same XXX-OEM- number, and my Inspirons and Latitude E6500s also share a different XXX-OEM- number for Win 7 Home Premium.

Granted, a full reinstallation of Windows 7 is arduous with hundreds of updates to download and reinstall, but maybe less of a hassle all around than juggling different reinstall media for different machines. If I’m correct, I can just make bootable USBs of the Win 7 Home and Pro DVDs, as I did for the Windows 10 Insider Builds on a couple of old Latitudes, and reinstall them on ANY of my Dell machines so long as they share the same OEM activation number? If so, I’m tempted to just go ahead with the Win 10 upgrades. Presumably if I run into driver or compatibility issues ( am worried about Hauppauge HD PVR drivers ) I can just do a clean install on a reformatted C: drive and completely remove all traces of Windows 10. I understand you’d also need to remove those two Windows 7 updates that downloaded Windows 10 in the background even if a copy of Windows 10 wasn’t reserved through the GMX icon.

That would also be a good opportunity to put a new bootable Windows 7 install partition on each drive. Please let me know if I’m on the right track, I’m just trying to avoid big headaches if I proceed with upgrades.

Overnight my Latitude D 630 with Nvidia Quadro NVS 135m running Insider Build 10240 finally expired with the telltale green-grid flash of death on startup. No surprise, and no great loss, it was just a matter of time. Friends lost their NVS 135m machines long ago, they ran notoriously hot and it probably just couldn’t handle the 64-bit architecture of this build.

I use my numerous other Dell models more or less as purpose-dedicated machines: 1 – Ancient and venerable old Dimension 4600 on XP Pro which I keep because it works beautifully with my equally old Dell 922 AIO printer. Also has Outlook Express to access archive of ancient e-mail 1 – Inspiron N 7010 1 – Inspiron N 7110 – both Inspirons shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium on recovery partitions, which I deleted because the initial recovery disks they created were useless. This was common on most of these models. Both needed reinstalling because of severe issues with drivers that couldn’t be removed or rolled back. Dell provided me with recovery disks which I reinstalled the OS without creating new recovery partitions.

In System Info the Product ID for both machines is now the same 00359-OEM. And not the unique product number on the Windows sticker of each machine. Both have Windows 10 reservation confirmed on taskbar GWX icon.

1 – Latitude D 820 with Intel graphics 1 – Latitude D 630 with Intel graphics – these two non-Nvidia machines have been running Build 10240 quite well and installing updates with no apparent problems. System info for each shows Windows 10 Pro and Activated, with unique IDs assigned by Insider Preview program: 0-00000-AA— 2 – Latitude E 6500 – both OEM stickers show they first shipped with Windows Vista Business, but Dell Refurbished sold them upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium. Like the Inspirons, I got rid of partitions when I reinstalled with Windows 7 Home Premium reinstallation disks.

Both have Windows 10 reservation confirmed on taskbar GWX icon. 1 – Latitude XT2 – from Dell refurbished, with Windows 7 Pro recovery partition intact. When I ran into severe driver problems, I tested reinstall from external drive and OEM disks provided by Dell rather than reinstall from partition, no problems using OEM disks. Taskbar shows Windows 10 is reserved. 4 – OptiPlex 780 SFF 1 – OptiPlex 790 SFF 2 – OptiPlex 960 SFF All the OptiPlex from Dell Refurbished shipped with their unique Windows sticker numbers and all have Windows 7 Pro on recovery partitions.

One of them had a dead coin-cell a few months later and I ended up reinstalling from partition with no problem. Others have not required reinstalls and are working fine, and I assume the recovery partitions would be fully functional if reinstall were required. Taskbars on all show that Windows 10 is reserved. On further reading it seems that Windows 10 has totally eliminated creation of system partitions, so I would be very surprised if it did NOT remove the Windows 7 recovery partition whether installing clean or by upgrade.

It looks like Windows.Old is just another folder on C:, waiting for the user to either restore or trash depending on their satisfaction level, compatibility and program and driver issues, etc. It just makes me wonder how big a leap I want to take if it removes the ability to revert after 30 days. Not that big of an issue for me as I have OEM disks which so far have worked without problems but I am worried that Microsoft may somehow disable the functionality of OEM disks after Windows 10 is installed, and with recovery partitions gone, one could find oneself up the creek with Windows 10 but without a paddle. I’ve had far too many experiences with buggy driver upgrades and if Windows 10 is automating driver updates, I have no idea if it will allow me to manually revert from a problem driver to a previous driver that actually works. I suppose that since I’ve stuck with Microsoft since my first 286 machine, I should have accumulated 30 years of trust. No such luck maybe some day.

Thank you again for your work in pulling all this mind-numbing information together in such a clear way. The Dell Windows 7 OEM SLP will continue to work after the device has been upgraded to a Windows 10 device so you can revert with the Dell Windows 7 Reinstallation DVD if required. Besides the older Dimension 4600 and Latitude D820/D630 all the other systems should allow Dell Windows 7 OEM SLP activation to work provided that they have the latest BIOS update. You have a nice range of Dell hardware to test with. If you do things the way I suggest i.e. Initially upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update, then make a Recovery Drive to Clean Reinstall with none of your systems will have Recovery Partitions as the Clean Reinstall wipes the HDD/SSD and sets up Windows to install on the full drive.

Microsoft appear to have finally taken feedback from here and other sources seriously especially regarding the unreliability of recovery partitions and the lack of ease to make/procure Reinstallation media with previous editions of Windows. Recovery Partitions won’t be needed any more and weren’t robust.

Slight changes of system partitions usually renders them completely useless as well as obviously hard drive failure. The initial Windows 10 upgrade changes partitions so I wouldn’t expect the Windows 7 OEM Recovery Partition to remain functional in any case. I doubt the Recovery Partition to remain functional even if you only use Windows Update to get Windows 10. See also here, it wasn’t greatly worded but it says essentially the same thing as I wrote above: Because of 2. You are recommended to make Recovery Media using Dell Backup and Recovery before the upgrade for each system or/and a third party utility such as Acronis (note if you want the factory settings, partition etc. To work, use Dell Backup and Recovery).

Also because of 2. Alongside the reduced system performance associated with the “upgrade” of Windows I recommend taking 1. Regarding driver updates Windows 10 is more or less handling everything.

I anticipate some minor teething problems but only with new hardware which doesn’t have completely optimised drivers. Windows 10 is likely going to work much better out of the box that any previous Windows version on most established hardware. In particular almost all the hardware you list has rock solid Intel hardware with well-established good Intel Drivers. Thanks for these reassuring details re: Win 7 OEM SLP.

As long as the OEM reinstall disks remain functional to revert back to Windows 7, I don’t mind doing a clean sweep on a couple of machines to test a clean install when Windows 10 iso is released. If I’m reading things correctly, the downloaded iso will be installable on any upgradeable machine, which will be great for those of us with less than high speed connections.

All my Windows 7 program installers and drivers are fully backed up, and I know which drivers definitely work with certain programs and which drivers definitely DON’T work. My concern is that Windows 10 will simply install whatever drivers are listed or provided by default by manufacturers in many cases when hardware becomes even slightly old the manufacturer abandons a driver assuming the final version is adequate, even if that version was totally buggy and users have to find an older version that actually works. Really hate to imagine Windows 10 automated updates repeatedly fetching the same driver shades of the Red Dwarf robot toaster “Does anybody want toast??” I will try clean install from iso on the E 6500s, their RAM is maxed out at 8 gigs and if their dual-cores can handle Hauppauge HD-PVR tasks without driver glitches then I’ll be more confident that the quad Inspirons usually assigned for recording will be up to the job. It’s a shame that the Windows 7 recovery partition specs weren’t standardized across different models and platforms certainly left a bad taste for many of us who had no option but to request OEM disks from the manufacturer. Dell has been very accommodating in that regard, owners of other products have been far less fortunate.

The smaller hard drive footprint for Windows 10 does look like a really nice feature, and if my test installs look good I’ll probably take the plunge and put it on all my upgradeable machines. I will definitely hold on to my OEM disks for Windows 7 no, I can’t fathom that in 18 months some task force at Microsoft will recommend that Windows 10 needs to become a subscription service. But stranger things have happened, and if that comes to pass, I’ll just laugh and happily step back to Windows 7. Extended support will run out in 2020, but in a 5-year span any damn thing can happen and it probably will.

Looking forward to July 29, and feeling less queasy about it. Be careful with a direct clean install. In my tests with the Windows Insider Preview you have to: 1. Initially upgrade via Windows Update. During this upgrade the device’s hardware profile is submitted to a Microsoft Product Activation Server and Activated. You can then create a Recovery Drive using Windows 10’s inbuilt tools.

You can then Clean Reinstall and your Product will automatically reactivate without prompt of a product key. Without performing 1. You get to an unactivated product and are prompted to buy a product key.

Also Microsoft have some newer drivers than Dell and even Intel. For the Latitude D820 for instance, the Intel Driver obtained via Windows Update is newer than that of the Intel Download Centre. Microsoft are unlikely to make Windows 10 a paid subscription They will get extremely bad PR for doing so and it will cause many to jump ship to Linux. They want users to upgrade for “free” so they can make the Windows Store and Bing Advertising a success giving them a constant source of revenue. Yes – but after each machine is upgraded, will the clean install media created on one machine be useable on another machine that has also been upgraded? It would be great to have the most current iso on media that could be used universally, i.e., across all my upgraded machines with hardware profile registered and activated.

If they release new iso’s periodically, it will be a huge improvement over previous Windows versions when a fresh install required catching up with hundreds of updates to stay current. If Microsoft totally eliminates the need for users to identify both unique and generic product keys when the hardware profile of an upgraded system is registered, that’s another step in a user-friendly direction. The Edition of Windows 10 you will get a free upgrade for depends on your base Edition of Windows. The Recovery Drive will be Edition and Architecture Locked.

You will make either a Windows 10 Home Recovery Drive or a Windows 10 Pro Recovery Drive. The Clean Reinstallation of Windows 10 via a Recovery Drive does not give users the option to select Edition so its likely Pro Recovery Drives won’t work with Home licenses and vice versa, I have used a Recovery Drive created on a Pro VM and used it on a Latitude D820 which upgraded from the Windows Insider Program to become a Windows 10 Pro device and it worked. That’s what I was hoping – one Home recovery drive should work across all the Home upgraded machines, and one Pro drive should work across all the Pro upgraded machines. It will be interesting to see how frequently or how rarely Microsoft releases updated iso’s for the different editions of Windows 10. Catching up on automatic updates going back just a few months would be great Windows 7 reinstall was never fast, taking hours to download and install all necessary updates going back?? Now just waiting to see what sort of messages arrive in updates section of Settings on my machines upgraded from Windows 7 compared to those on fresh installs through Insider Builds program.

I am reluctant to quit the Insider program just yet, will wait to see if Windows 10 downloads any details or instructions re: quitting, activation requirements, etc. Before doing a clean install when iso is available. I’ve read where people have already quit Insiders with a “Thank You” from Microsoft but it seems a bit vague what becomes of those old activation numbers after quitting. I’m assuming that at the point of quitting Insiders Microsoft has already registered the hardware profile of each machine and will no longer require users to keep track of installation and activation keys that aspect of using two types of keys was really pretty confusing and hopefully the need to use keys for machines that upgraded to Windows 10 will not be required. If machine registration has cut right down to tracing a code stamped on the motherboard, future hardware changes including hard drive replacement should be pretty simple.

Hi Philip, cracking guide, clear, well written. Wish I’d found it before I started all this! XPS 8700, 2Tb, 30Gb SSD, Win 8.1 upgraded to 10, now pretty OK, updated Dell Drivers, BIOS on A11.

Now at stage I want to do clean install so been reading up on the two options. One thing I’m wondering about is Intel RST. This was part of original 8.1 set up from Dell (although it needed fixing to get it working) and it’s running fine as far as I can tell on the upgraded Win10 system. I’m assuming I’ll need to download Intel RST software and RST drivers. What about HDD / SSD set up? HDD is currently set to RAID, so assume this won’t change? Any thoughts on how this will work with a clean install?

Thanks again for all this informationa labour of love! Well honestly if you are going through the procedure of a Clean Install, I would suggest you whip out the 30 GB SSD and then replace it with a 250-500 GB mSATA Crucial MX200 as I’m not overly fond of cache drives: Then change the SATA operation to AHCI and then Clean Reinstall Windows 10: On the other hand if you want to use the cache drive just treat Windows 10 as Windows 8.1. Its possible Windows 10 already has the preinstallation storage drivers already inbuilt for a cache SSD configuration so the loading of SATA drivers may be unnecessary but I haven’t tried it. Brand new XPS 13 with the upgrade to the 256GB SSD. It seems like a cracking good machine I’ve got everything set up the way it needs to be and the last step before I let it loose on the new owner is to create the USB Recovery Drive. The instructions say you need 8GB or larger so I bought an 8GB USB drive. No joy as it’s not actually large enough, as you need 8GB of free space and an empty 8GB drive only has around 7.1GB on it.

I went out and bought a 16GB drive and the progress bar gets pretty much all the way to the end and then it gives an error “A problem occurred when creating the recovery drive”. I’ve tried a couple of times with the same error In the USB drive itself, the drive has been labeled “RECOVERY” and there are three folders (boot, efi, sources) and three files (bootmgr, bootmgr,efi, reagent) at the root level There is about 650MB free space on the USB drive (i.e. It’s used over 14GB compared with the 8GB it said it needs).