Revert back from Vista to XP on a Dell-laptop

This is a manual for recovering the XP operation system on a Dell-laptop

CASE 1: The laptop was ordered with the XP operation system (OS) and was not upgraded by the user to Vista.

In this case the user wants to revert his laptop to the state it shipped from the Dell-factory. (For example when he/she discovers a lot of annoying spyware/virusses/...)

Solution:

• Back-up all your important data on an external harddrive (exported Firefox bookmarks, Internet Explorer favorites, My Documents, Music, Images, ...)
• Boot the laptop and press CTRL + F11 at the moment 'www.dell.com' appears in a blue banner at the top of the screen. Normally, this will invoke the Dell System Restore (DSR) feature. Follow the instructions and after a few minutes the user wi'll have a fresh new XP-installation.

CASE 2: The laptop was ordered with the XP operation system (OS) and was upgraded by the user to Vista.

In this case the user installed Vista manually on his computer. But after a while the user wants to revert to a fresh XP-OS.

Result: because Vista was installed, booting the laptop will no longer show 'www.dell.com' in a blue banner at the top of the screen. This is because Vista changes the Master Boot Record (MBR).

Consequences: pressing CTRL + F11 while booting will no longer give the user the option to recover his XP-OS.

Solution:

1) Create a bootable disk

Since laptops are no longer shipped with a floppy-drive, the user will have to make a bootable CD or a bootable flash drive.
In this manual I'll only explain how to make a bootable flash drive.

• download the Virtual Floppy Drive (VFD) from http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html
• extract the files from the downloaded zip-archive and launch vfdwin.exe
• go to the tab Driver and press Install, then Start

• go to the tab Drive0 and change the Drive Letter to A. Press the 'Open/Create...'-button (! If you already have an A:-drive on your system, change this Drive Letter to something else.)

• choose 3.5" 1.44MB as Media Type and press Create. (You don't need to press Browse...!)

• at this moment, VFD is configured correctly

• go to Explorer. As you can see there'll appear a new diskdrive (A:)

• press the rightmousebutton on it and choose Format...

• choose to make an MS-DOS startup disk and press Start.

Now you have a Virtual Floppy Drive with the needed boot-files on it. This is the end of step one.   

2) Copy bootfiles from Virtual Floppy Drive to flash drive

• Place the flash drive in your laptop and format it in FAT or FAT16.
• Next, you'll need Bart's MKBT, which stands for 'Make Bootable'. Download mkbt20.zip over here: http://www.nu2.nu/mkbt/
  Unpack this archive. Open a DOS Window and go to the directory where you extracted MKBT.
  Type: mkbt -c a: bootsect.bin (Tip: 'a:' represents the location of the Virtual Floppy Drive)
      The boot sectors from the bootable floppy disk have just been saved to a file in the folder where you extracted MKBT.
• Next, you'll have to copy the bootsector to the flash drive.
  In the same DOS-console Type: mkbt -x bootsect.bin Z: (! 'Z:' represents the flash drive drive Letter. So if your flash drive has another drive letter, then change the 'Z' accordingly. In my case it was E:)
  Done.

3) Download Dsrfix, place it on the flash drive and fix the system

• Download dsrfix.zip from here: www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dsrfix.zip. (Updated 08-02-2008, version 3.12)
• Extract dsrfix.com from the archive and copy it to the flash drive. (! The other files in the archive are supplemental. The only file you need to copy to floppy disk is dsrfix.com.)
• Boot from your flash drive. (! I assume you know how to change the BIOS of your laptop. Enable USB-booting and place the USB-drive on top of the booting-list)
• When the console is loaded, run the command DSRFIX. Review the results to assess whether your system is a good candidate for restoring Dell's DSR feature. (see Dsrfix-website)
  Optional: save a dumpfile before making any changes. This may be useful if you later need the information for forensic reconstruction.
• If you decide your system is a good candidate for repairing Dell's DSR feature, rerun Dsrfix with the command " DSRFIX /F ". The program will repeat its summary report, then prompt you to queue any changes to be made. Accept or deny each fix proposed by Dsrfix. After proposals have been queued, confirm whether you want Dsrfix to go ahead and write those changes to your hard disk.
• Rerun Dsrfix again for a new report to check the results.
  If Dsrfix's report shows no fatal errors and no alerts, the Dell-specific restore feature should be functional on your system. You should see a blue "www.dell.com" banner across the top of the screen when the computer starts to boot. Pressing the Ctrl+F11 keys at that moment should divert the boot process to Dell's custom restore utility.

Websites

• Dsrfix - utility to fix the master boot record (MBR): http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.htm
• Bart's Make Bootable: http://www.nu2.nu/mkbt/
• How to make a bootable flash drive: http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm
• Boot from USB-stick: http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php