How to Simply Restore a Dell Laptop PC to Factory Settings

[@XMAGICB3ASTx]

The problem I have is at 11:33 of the video, the problem being the recovery tools list only goes down to command prompt so I do not have the bottom one you used during this video?

[@arktv1815]

did you ever figure out what to do i have same problem

[@tiffanymartin3464]

I am not computer savvy, nor do I have the $280 that "Geek Squad" wanted to get rid of the multiple viruses on my Dell. They recommended that I "restore" my computer, but they refused to show me how. I bought a 32GB thumb drive from Walmart for $20, and I googled "How to reset my dell to factory settings" and this video popped up. Lucky for me I have the exact computer that was shown in the video. It took me a few hours, and I did it myself. The Virus is gone so thank you for posting this video!

[@citizenjoevotes]

GuruBrew, thank you! I have a Dell Vista and the prompts were slightly different but close enough to get it done!

[@alainmichel3203]

+Melanie, Would you care to explain what was different with your Vista laptop? My wife and I are seniors and have almost no experience with computers. See my post above. Merci beaucoup! Alain

[@tlltimberlake]

You are totally awesome. One of my friends just happen to be in the hospital. She's sick and her computer was sicker then she was. I promised that I would have her computer well and back to her before she came home. To make a long story short, because of you I was able to keep my word. Thank you sooooo much. God Bless You.

[@TheLegendkid08]

Thanks , I was able to restore my computer to factory setting ... This is a Helpful video

[@TRrussell8]

Steve, I just restored an old laptop to the factory settings using your sage advice.....worked like a champ....thanks for sharing.

[@sunlitgrunt]

This was very helpfull and even I could do this, and im only 12 so thanks for a good and easy tutorial

[@Snipergaming437]

Same here broth

[@jonnyalvarez7280]

Same here too

[@BurningCopies]

Chicken broth?

[@blacksta-r]

He is 18 now ;)

[@norsuhaida1]

your instruction is so easy and your voice is calming.. i am restoring formating on my own my dell window 8.. but i am taking the needful step on doing the needed backup from you. Thank you very much for sharing the knowledge.

[@kutecitten5701]

Hi: i don't have the "dell data safe restore & emergency back up" please advise!!!

[@yanemisarabia]

I don't have it either!

[@A_Gamer_]

do you guys have a dell computer? This only works with dell computers. If you have a dell and this is not showing up, im sorry I don't know what to tell you. hope this helps. :)

[@lilianaespinal6644]

im so happy that i was able to stumble upon your video , i called dell support and they were going to charge me $279 thank you sooo soooo much =)

[@asimsuwal7661]

I dont have the last option (Dell data safe restore and emergency backup) what shall i do?

[@BulletGallery]

Same plzzz help us

[@Key69Big]

Go to Best Buy and make one

[@debbierossetti2651]

Thank you thank you thank. This video did exactly what I was looking for. Before I even found this I called someone and they wanted $129 to restore it. So glad I found you

[@GGigabiteM]

"Windows Easy Transfer doesn't transfer viruses" This is very incorrect. Viruses, worms, trojans, etc. don't need to be "installed" on a machine for it to be infected. Any of the files you transfer can be infected with all sorts of malicious code that can easily take foothold on the new machine. This laptop could have been fixed without going through the pain of reinstalling everything. Removing those fake malware removal applications and doing a general system cleanup would have resolved pretty much all of the issues.

[@GGigabiteM]

+Brian Tumor *gasp* there actually exists another honest and competent computer tech in this world, I though I was all alone out there. Dirtbag techs that go through peoples' files or run unprotected backups can remain happily ignorant from the fact that most computer users; When time to upgrade will send their computers out to recycling, the dump or some second hand shop will never bother wiping their machines. It's still disgusting they get away with it on a daily basis though. I can't tell you how many computers I've acquired over the years from such sources that have had financial records, business records, SSNs and even their childrens medical records on them. And people wonder why identity theft is at an all time high. I do these unknown people favors when I get them and run a department of defense extended wipe on them before reusing them for something else. I also have the fair share of cleaning up after other techs messes stories, but that could write a small novella.

[@AwezomezMinecraft]

I love you man, you taught me how to intsall a graphics card 2 years ago, and now, I have this custom built computer. You really changed my life style man! Thanks! Cheers

[@sheilacvetic2010]

Thank you, I learned more than expected.

[@robertsumption1243]

Very well done I learned a lot ! I find your manner of speaking and presentation to be easy to follow and understand so many others may have the skills but if they talk real fast I cannot follow what they say . THANK YOU ! Bob in Michigan in a big snowstorm

[@wadedale20101]

good work.

[@wadedale20101]

great way to go.

[@Gaellic]

Very good teaching video,sure wish you lived next door to me to help me out on my computer problems,but with videos like these,it's made it possible for me to work on my computer since I don't have anyone close by to help me.

[@DJKEYS-br1xh]

I HAVE WACHED THIS VID..A FEW TIMES IN THE PAST. AND JUST FORGOT TO SAY THANKS ..SO IM SAYING IT NOW...

[@popawillysmurf9834]

Wow! Me too, I seen this video awhile back remembering how helpful it was but forgot to say thank you....very cool.

[@lelepa4879]

You are a tech life saver. I restored my computer so I could give it to my little sister 😍😍😍 thanks so much you are so very helpful

[@PhoenixVail]

Help! I have the Restore Option but when I select that, it just reboots the computer. It doesn't allow me to restore.. What am I doing wrong?

[@souamollxiong6891]

me 2 T-T

[@eightshortlegs1418]

I'm having the same problem you are 😢

[@91BLR]

I am having the same problem? Now what do we do?

[@riceski]

It's been two years and the guy doesn't bother with a reply nor does anyone else. 2012 BS if you ask me.

[@whalershockeymemories8332]

I just rewatched the video, I have a Dell Pc and I am in the process of doing what your video has shown. THANK YOU I will see how this goes!

[@dannymohamad7968]

What if you can't find the last option

[@tomnewton6056]

Aroe Xo yeah

[@upswing4066]

Aroe Xo same

[@michellejones3084]

Thanks for the help ! I've tried lots of places asking how I can do this but nobody gave me a straight answer ,keep going man ! :D

[@18Draculaura]

Omg,Im Totally laughing right now Haha xD

[@hiamrchrd]

Why? this is an easy tut

[@18Draculaura]

an Otaku Or Votaku would get the joke.

[@oakland2641]

Puchii Tsukayin keep your immature jokes to yourself!

[@18Draculaura]

It's not a 'Immature Joke' and you might aswell leave this comment i'm not even a troll ._. you're not a Vocaloid Fan,so you don't get it.

[@BurningCopies]

Nobody is a fan of that shit

[@amandasmith8580]

Thank you so so much for this video. My laptop was completely fried with adds and popups. My laptop is now working 100% completely fine and brand new. This was very helpful and you explained everything thoroughly. Thanks again!

[@skostka87]

Well spoken, non-intimidating!!!!! 10 thumbs up!!!! lol

[@libertytigerfan]

Thank you for this video. I was just looking online for instructions to restore my Dell from Recovery Discs and found your video. It was exactly what I needed. Again, thank you very much.

[@Draaxis]

THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU BEAUTIFUL SONOFABITCH!!!!! I have had this Dell Inspiron 1018 Mini for a very long time and finally I have a chance to start over.

[@MDFader]

What a life saver this is! Was ready to buy another computer after mine was hacked but this was so easy to follow. Thanks!

[@Eminaya5]

Thank you so much!!!! this video allowed me to restore my super old Dell for at least the next few months till I wait for laptop prices to drop

[@CoreBlasterNEURALzx0]

Skip to 8:42 if you don't care about backing up data. Thanks man it worked perfectly.

[@Iskaera]

Dude thanks so much I've been trying to restore this for hours and your vid is the only one I found with helpful info

[@theirishpunk73]

This guy's video's are SO HELPFUL!! No matter how good (or not) you are with computers, these videos are a huge help!! I have ALREADY saved so much money fixing my own computer problems myself WITH the help of these informative videos!! Thank You for taking up your own time to help us all out!!

[@lustersa]

You are AWESOME to provide broadcast this video as a public service. My system was infected with spyware, Trojans, viruses, etc. you gave me the confidence to restore my computer back to the original factory settings. I struggled fir two weeks trying various types of "anti this and that what a JOKE! You saved me money and gave me peace of mind. You are my tech hero. God Bless You!!

[@DevilsWar]

Thankyou very much for the video, its has helped me a great deal, in fixing my brothers laptop. i have subscribed to you and will watch the rest in due course. always nice to know there are people out there with good information and that are willing to help others. once again thankyou

[@HowAaronic55]

Thank you for posting this video it helped me immensely! I have been meaning to fix (restore) my mother's old Dell computer and reset it for my sister to use. You quickly and easily explained the process. Once again Thank you!

[@robertramos6327]

Thank You, you were lots of help. I purchased a used Dell laptop and need help. I couldn't do anything with the System Administrator Password still in effect. I'm still trying, but this video has helped me alot. Thank You.

[@ericnilson2792]

You're a great man to guide others to their truth of learning meaning-full skills. Thanks!

[@greglorenzen3593]

Thank you for your timely video. I have a Dell 530 w/ Win 7 to upgrade with new drivers and a laptop being sent to the manufacturer. I will use your step by step video to remove all files prior to shipping. Regards

[@TheBestRoddy]

dude thanks sooo much. after watching your video on this my comp is running perfect! your so awesome! and i will be using you as my go to guy for any issues!!

[@thelifeofjessejames]

I had never heard about tapping F8 to open system repair that's new for me but I am very tech savvy and found this to be a very interesting video

[@GuruBrew]

Yes, that is basically all reseating means. If you have any cables connected to the drive , also remove them and then reassemble. If you are still getting the message about reseating the hard drive after doing this then I would say your hard drive is defective because BIOS cannot see it. And that means you will have to get another hard drive and an operating system on disk that matches your computer.

[@MrBully75]

Thank you for your tutorial I have done many factory resets for friends & family & i never new about windows easy transfer, I did every thing manually but not any more thanks to you.

[@ericasoto3306]

Thank you, I don't know anything in advance but this video has giving me good information on how to restore my window 7 computer to factory settings... Thank you once again...

[@SilkySmg1]

Thank you! I haven't tried it yet, but I will soon on my laptop and the 2 desktops in the house! You have saved my household some money! Smooches!

[@thenecranomicon]

The whole point of troubleshooting and repair is to go through each step. The process is tedious and boring but each step is important. I did skim through it and thought it was a very useful and helpful how to. Nice work overall.

[@luisgarcia1088]

Thank you very much, I had been trying to do this for a while now, and it wasn't until I stumbled across this video that I was able to perform, thanks.

[@ktanner7455]

Many thanks for this. It has to be the easiest and clearest guidance I have come across and is exactly what I need to restore my wife's PC which has virtually locked solid! I had no idea this option to restore existed. :-)

[@sercanyasin09]

Mate I must say that was a massive help and it was so easy to do...thanks heaps from Australia cheers

[@MaioFourpaws]

This video helped me fix my PC... But even better is the GlamourShots on the wall! Golden.

[@bfigueroa419]

Helped me see what I needed to do BEFORE jumping in. Thanks!!

[@ambsnebbs322able]

thanks guru brew for an excellent tutorial once again... keep up the great work, you videos are the best on yourube for sure!!!

[@drew23ski]

Thanks man. Great job. I was looking for 10hrs before finding this and had it sorted in 15mins. I downloaded google chrome just when i had removed my antivirus and got bobrowser which hijacked all my browsers. It added about 10 or more nasty programs. You are the best!!!

[@Jdublifter]

Very easy to follow instructions. Currently half way thru the process. will keep you posted

[@GuruBrew]

You can obtain system and driver disk directly from dell. I am assuming you have a windows 7 OS so that will be one that they still offer. Check the Dell support site for Operating system replacement disk. Should be less than 20 dollars shipped with a valid machine serial number

[@IH1940HAY]

An excellent job. Do you have a build for the hard drive and PC power supply?

[@neelabhaq]

Very professional and helpful video! You saved me money, time and my computer. Thank you!

[@king_g_diddy551]

guruBrew i followed your directions...& computer came out PERFECT...THANKS

[@gmf2112]

Thanks for the great video! I'm working on rebuilding my Precision M4600, and I hope this will work for me. As long as I didn't delete something I shouldn't have, it should work great. I didn't know that windows easy transfer would also install programs! That's huge! That's the biggest pain for me after rebuilding...getting all my software I need back on the machine.

[@billdavis1019]

Thanks for being there for us. New needs for me...For proxy Server How can you keep this from blocking access to the internet?

[@GuruBrew]

You did the right thing by getting that disk. It will make quick work and fix the problem.

[@GuruBrew]

Try going into bios (Dell I think is F2) after reseating and see if the hard drive is listed in there under attached devices. It's is possible the drive interface might be turned off in BIOS setting but doubtful.

[@dhana947]

Thanks a lot...I fixed my longtime PC issue because of you..Have a wonderful day :)

[@VictorTrice]

thanks you helped me very well and can you tell me what is the best antivirus program to use

[@thenecranomicon]

have you checked to see if there is a partitioned drive on your HDD? Dell usually has it set up that way. If you check the "my computer" icon and should see your C drive and another drive right next to it. If you have that you probably have everything you need to hit F8 at start up. Then choose diagnostics option.

[@x0utf0rbl00dx]

Thanks a lot for the video my computer was so slow and had a virus so bad I couldn't get the windows easy transfer to work so I switched only some pictures over to a USB drive so far it's running much faster

[@L00vre]

I love watching you troubleshoot computers. I find it strangely amusing xD. Also a very detailed tutorial. Nice one!

[@russelld9500]

Nice job, not to fast, not to slow. I'll save it to my favorites !

[@StoneRunning23]

Very good! Am trying restore, upgrade a 5 year old Dell. Hopefully will be able to use your tip here!👏👏👍👍

[@austinmefi7438]

Ooooooh Myyy Goshhh.... I'm about to throw my laptop in the garbage yo!... thank you so much for taking the time to make this video GURUBREW!!! my laptop runs like new.. I saved 30kajillion dollars. This works ladies and gents...well for my laptop, which is a dell.

[@jamesydunlop]

Sincere thanks, i just reinstalled windows vista following your guide and everything went to plan.Now for the updates...

[@gypsybabyful]

Awesome! I feel like a computer geek now. I have vista so hopefully everything will run smoothly.

[@sootyrudkey8340]

Hi guru, u're such a good & useful tech for Dell 14z. U help me to fix my 14z real easy. I give u 10 thumb up. Tks

[@Joemonter13]

Very good video. Too bad so many people's computers get messed up. Glad guys like you are around to fix them.

[@GuruBrew]

You are most welcome. thank you for the comment

[@tylerhensley2312]

Thank you! My computer is running top notch from following this video.

[@alainmichel3203]

Gurubrew... Well done! We wish there was someone like you in San Diego County to bring our laptop to. Have had several less-than-happy dealings with some repair shops. We are seniors [65 years +] and have v-er-y little experience with doing just what your video shows. Would your video work for a Inspiron 1720 with Vista installed? Our machine is 7+ years old; it freezes up constantly and has to be rebooted several times before the "freezing" tames down to a reasonable & tolerable number. Any assistance would be most gratefully received. Many thanks for taking the time to respond! Alain

[@sakuraart]

Alain, The problem with your pc might not be Vista. It's made with microsized sensitive silicon on the chips. Any of them, and there are tens of thousands of them all throughout your PC. It could be something like that, a good system check (I use System Mechanic) to go through everything to see if it reads anything in the memory or hard drive as error. If it doesn't find errors there, then it's Vista. A lot of folks don't like (or didn't like) Vista, but I always found it to be a very stable OS. I can help you out with it if you still have the unit, but newer ones are pretty cheap now.

[@paulvalnes2128]

I had an old computer, I used the windows disk method. Thank you, nice video

[@4744npvd]

Awesome!! Thanks to good people like you who offer genuine help to people like us. You have earned my respect.

[@aikachan5443]

Hi I like your video, its really helpful, but just a question though, do i still need Dell Operating System CD, and Dell Drivers and Utilities CD when restoring the laptop to factory setting?

[@samkeighley]

Thank you for the step by step instruction, it solved the laptop issues

[@hepcat620]

Thank God! I was able to fix my Dell laptop quickly and easily with this straightforward step by step video. How do I give you money?

[@hockeyistherealmvp2505]

Thanks, I was able to restore my Dell Inspiron running windows Vista! It had the exact problem the computer in the video did

[@isaacgill7651]

KZbin is the best for all friends we watch every video which we need to watch. Thanks KZbin.

[@nickpick148]

Thx for the help man, but one question. When saving the files to the external drive are you able to save programs too, such as Microsoft word and not have to just save the set up for word, because i do not have my key for word any more.... plz help

[@miveesp]

Thanks a lot for sharing this video, it will help me on restoring my dell xps 14 ultrabook, and I also want to ask you How do you convert that hard drive to be used as a external hard drive?

[@GuruBrew]

No conversion is really necessary and can be used as is. You might want to format it and start fresh by right clicking the drive in my computer and choose full format. Steve

[@miveesp]

GuruBrew thanks but how do make it to use a usb cable , what kind of cables do I need?

[@amandadavid5513]

GuruBrew I need to restore my dell 4030 without any disk or admin passwords. can you help me?

[@rodneyallgire6864]

good info, what if you have troubles just booting. is the dell recovery disk the best way to get it working? i believe my son got a nasty virus slowing things down.

[@matthewramelb]

you are THE MAN!!! Thank you so much. I have a Dell XPS, and your tutorial is still very helpful.

[@asimsohail1213]

One of the best video I have ever seen .

[@mcleod55]

Do you have a video on how to make the DIY external backup HDD device you were using to save the Windows Easy Transfer?

[@MarkCervantes-st2mg]

Good stuff buddy. It was real helpful with the understand of something I needed to know. Thank you.

[@AjayDixit]

This is a nice video with detailed information on restoring to factory settings. I have Dell Inspiron 17r N7110 model. It looks like it's hard disk is having some problem. When I ran system check it shows error in hard disk and recommends to replace it. Now the problem is that if I replace that how will I get windows which comes preinstalled on laptop. I think Dell has provided that into a separate partition. How will I copy that to my new hard disk?

[@fb510m]

Thank you for taking time to help us!

[@donnacosta6633]

Thank you so much, clear and easy to follow and now I have a new working computer!

[@Lizziecoffey]

Such a great video! I ended up erasing everything on my laptop but that is what I was going for. All of my files and pictures were from I was young and I didn't need them. Thanks anyways!

[@erstgl]

Thank you for sharing...Steve....you're a profesional Guru Brew!

[@rstjohnw]

What about pressing the Ctrl and F11 keys during startup. On some Dell's that will bring up the recovery console and give you the option of factory image restore.

[@debfild5054]

This video is excellent! The instructions were simple and clear. Thank you.

[@barmavic]

Thank you for sharing your recommendations and experience. The process worked for me.