I think I've been DELL'd

[justbob30]

I have a dell Dimension E-520 I bought in November 06, Intel 2.66 core 2,
gig of ram & 320 gig SATA hard drive...also have 2 80 gig eide external usb
drives...I was told & the install C.D. indicated I have XP MCE 2005 rollout
2.

I tried to install the Vista Home premium upgrade yesterday and after
stripping my audio & video driver along with some other stuff, disconnected,
both printers & their drivers, my camera & the usb drives, I started the
install process...got to the point where I have the choice of upgrade or
custom install & I get the message I am not eligible to upgrade, custom
(clean) install only.

I checked MS'S site & it indicates that I either have a fat 32 partition
(not that I know of) or an "unqualified OS" I checked the site & MCE 05
should be qualified, checked my system & it shows MCE 2002 rollout 2, what
gives anyone have any idea if that is the way MCE shows up or was I "DELL'd?

I have done 2 back ups of my data, one using my regular back up program to
one external drive, the other using the Vista transfer wizard to the other
external (so yes, I AM PARANOID).

I understand If I do a clean install I will remove everything off my drive,
I will then have to install all the programs that I want to use then run the
recovery to replace the files. Is that the correct order?

 

[Malke]

I have a dell Dimension E-520 I bought in November 06, Intel 2.66 core
2, gig of ram & 320 gig SATA hard drive...also have 2 80 gig eide
external usb drives...I was told & the install C.D. indicated I have XP
MCE 2005 rollout 2.

I tried to install the Vista Home premium upgrade yesterday and after
stripping my audio & video driver along with some other stuff,
disconnected, both printers & their drivers, my camera & the usb drives,
I started the install process...got to the point where I have the choice
of upgrade or custom install & I get the message I am not eligible to
upgrade, custom (clean) install only.

I checked MS'S site & it indicates that I either have a fat 32 partition
(not that I know of) or an "unqualified OS" I checked the site & MCE 05
should be qualified, checked my system & it shows MCE 2002 rollout 2,
what gives anyone have any idea if that is the way MCE shows up or was I
"DELL'd?

I have done 2 back ups of my data, one using my regular back up program
to one external drive, the other using the Vista transfer wizard to the
other external (so yes, I AM PARANOID).

I understand If I do a clean install I will remove everything off my
drive, I will then have to install all the programs that I want to use
then run the recovery to replace the files. Is that the correct order?

Dells have a small (32MB or so) FAT32 special partition where the Dell
Diagnostics live. That is probably what is throwing Vista off. So if
Vista insists that you do a clean install, then delete the Diagnostics
partition and just format the entire drive NTFS.

I believe you have the correct order regarding the recovery but since I
haven't done it myself I'll leave that part of your post to someone else.


Malke

 

[Richard in AZ]

I have a dell Dimension E-520 I bought in November 06, Intel 2.66 core 2, gig of ram & 320 gig SATA
hard drive...also have 2 80 gig eide external usb drives...I was told & the install C.D. indicated
I have XP MCE 2005 rollout 2.

I tried to install the Vista Home premium upgrade yesterday and after stripping my audio & video
driver along with some other stuff, disconnected, both printers & their drivers, my camera & the
usb drives, I started the install process...got to the point where I have the choice of upgrade or
custom install & I get the message I am not eligible to upgrade, custom (clean) install only.

I checked MS'S site & it indicates that I either have a fat 32 partition (not that I know of) or
an "unqualified OS" I checked the site & MCE 05 should be qualified, checked my system & it shows
MCE 2002 rollout 2, what gives anyone have any idea if that is the way MCE shows up or was I
"DELL'd?

I have done 2 back ups of my data, one using my regular back up program to one external drive, the
other using the Vista transfer wizard to the other external (so yes, I AM PARANOID).

I understand If I do a clean install I will remove everything off my drive, I will then have to
install all the programs that I want to use then run the recovery to replace the files. Is that
the correct order?

Windows Media Center is a subset of Windows XP PRO. As such you cannot upgrade to a Home Version.
That is considered a downgrade. You can upgrade to Vista Business.

If you do the clean install, you will have to reinstall everything, including hardware drivers.
But it can be done.