In alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, on Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:24:30 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

On 2017-08-22 12:03, micky wrote:
Hi, I bought 2 weeks ago a Dell Latitude E4300, a small laptop, Win7,
64-bit.

It had a fingerprint sensor and an ID card sensor. They don't have
their software anymore, because win7 was re-installed, but that implies
to me the computer was used in a corporate or government environment.

(It also had IIUC the ability to do a special fast boot that would
enable it only to get email. It used separate boot files that were hard
coded somewhere iiuc, but I'm sure that also required software I don't
have now. That's okay because I'm not some executive who has to read
his email every 20 minutes. And in practice I would never turn the
computer on only to get email. Even if I only planned that, the email
might make me want to check the web for something.)

I probably have lots of questions, but this is the first one.

I went to dell support, entered the tag number, and ran the driver
checkup and it listed 9 drivers to be updated!!!

Gosh that's hard to believe.

Video, Chipset, Video Graphics, Audio, Bios, Mouse/Keyboard, Network,
Network Wireless, Serial ATA.

That's almost everything. (What's left?) Even though the thing seems to
be working fine now. Should I install them one at a time or all at
once?

It says "Auto Installation not available. Please try again later or
manually download nad install individual updates." Is this one of
those times when later will never come? Or should I wait?

This would imply the previous owner never updated drivers at all, and
that seems surprising in a corporate environment. Or not??

Thanks.

Before you do anything else, make an image of C: on a bootable disk or
USB stick first. Search for "making USB bootable windows 7" for
instructions. If the machine has an optical drive, you can make a
bootable disk. Use Macrium or similar.

It's a good thing I asked. Yeah, it has a DVD writer. I didnt' want
one, to save weight, but this is what they were selling, and it's
already useful**.

However, when it comes to drovers, the basic rule is If It Ain't Broke,
Don't Fix it. If you know you have a driver problem, update only that
one driver.

It's a good thing I asked. I am often a goody-two shoes who wants
everything in its place and updates everything like a good boy, and that
was my tendency here. OTOH, sometimes I don't do anything like I'm
supposed to. Thanks a lot for such a helpful reply.

As for no updates etc, check the existing partitions using Control Panel
Administrative tasks Storage. You should see one or more
rescue/maintenance partitions. If there aren't any, the machine has been
purposely changed so that you can't Refresh it. If those partitions

It's not there. I think the machines were wiped and dumped by the
company that used them and the reseller installed win7.

But maybe there is room for another partition. The HDD is 148GB and I
haven't much software or data yet but I'm only using 34 GB (and I don't
load that much on a laptop). 114GB empty. Maybe in addition to the
DVD, I should copy or clone the current partition to a new one, and then
it will be right there when I need it??


exist, then you can Refresh the machine, which will set it back to
factory-fresh. That means you'll have to update it, which should solve
the driver update problem. Refreshing may be the best bet, because then
you would get the the fingerprint sensor etc back.

That would be fun, but I don't even set a password so it would only be
so I could brag about my fancy computer.

Still, do you think I could find and dowload the fingerprint software,
or the speedy email software? I'll go look.

Good luck.

Remember to make that bootable image!

Yes, sir. The bootable image is not the whole HDD, just windows and a
couple other files, is that right?



**This machine weighs 3.75 pounds and my old acer netbook weighs 3
pounds. I was hoping for 2 pounds but this old thing was a lot cheaper
and after I bought it, the vendor said it was more sturdy than the Acer.
Not sure why she said that.