checklist: before I ship my new laptop back...

I'll save my Firefox profiles, then use Eraser to overwrite them. I can paste them into my new laptop. Same for Thunderbird.

Same for download folder, so as to not have to re-download them.

Same for Videos and Photos and Documents folders.

Eraser on my Signal AppData folder, without saving anything. Same for temp folder.

My critical passwords were never on the laptop's drive, only on a USB stick.

I guess make a Reflect backup just in case.

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Then probably use Dell's Support Assist program to Reset or whatever it's called.


What am I neglecting?


[I've only had it two weeks.]

I did make a Macrium Windows backup right after first start, even before it wanted to do Windows and Dell updates. Would that be superior to Dell's Reset utility? Security/privacy wise, I mean.

Save your browser bookmarks.

[@Brink Do you have a tutorial on Dell's SupportAssist Reset function? Yours are much better than Dell's docs.]

Been having a nightmare with Dell and the so-called repair agents for the past 6 weeks, laptop has gone back to them twice. Apparently, they have changed the MB twice, problem still exists. Sorry to highjack the thread. Everytime I start the laptop this appears sometimes after a few seconds, sometimes after a few hours and when it does only option is to hard shutdown.

Been in the same situation with Dell on my laptop - 2 x M/B, 1 x screen for a screen that kept breaking up like your picture.

Solution by me? A bit of insulating tape over the top of the video card to stop the keyboard touching the video card.

They are f^%^&"g hopeless and don't know jack about repairing systems, all they do is swap out stuff in the forlorn hope that it cures the issue (or you get fed up and fix it yourself)

CornishRattler said:

Been having a nightmare with Dell and the so-called repair agents for the past 6 weeks, laptop has gone back to them twice. Apparently, they have changed the MB twice, problem still exists. Sorry to highjack the thread. Everytime I start the laptop this appears sometimes after a few seconds, sometimes after a few hours and when it does only option is to hard shutdown.

Click to expand...

Well, you've added to my belief that returning mine is the right thing to do. My wild guess is that robot soldering is making a lot of dry-ish solder connections these days. Good luck to you.

wimorrison said:

Solution by me? A bit of insulating tape over the top of the video card to stop the keyboard touching the video card.

Click to expand...

I'll remember that. Inadvertent contact causing a short.

wimorrison said:

Been in the same situation with Dell on my laptop - 2 x M/B, 1 x screen for a screen that kept breaking up like your picture.

Solution by me? A bit of insulating tape over the top of the video card to stop the keyboard touching the video card.

They are f^%^&"g hopeless and don't know jack about repairing systems, all they do is swap out stuff in the forlorn hope that it cures the issue (or you get fed up and fix it yourself)

Click to expand...

Cheers for your solution, it's worth giving it a crack before it goes off to the chimps again

Bob1212 said:

What am I neglecting?

Click to expand...

Just make a system image,
backup or otherwise record any useful Windows or application settings [such as, for example, the Firefox profile you mentioned],
backup all your own files,
clean install Windows.
Clean Install Windows 11 - use the local account method this contains - ElevenForumTutorials

All the best,
Denis

Bob1212 said:

[@Brink Do you have a tutorial on Dell's SupportAssist Reset function? Yours are much better than Dell's docs.]

Click to expand...

Hmm wonder why @Brink didn't show up correctly for you? Hopefully, my reply to you will get his attention for ya.

Bob1212 said:

[@Brink Do you have a tutorial on Dell's SupportAssist Reset function? Yours are much better than Dell's docs.]

Click to expand...

Wynona said:

Hmm wonder why @Brink didn't show up correctly for you? Hopefully, my reply to you will get his attention for ya.

Click to expand...

Looks like the mention wasn't posted correctly for me to get it.

I don't have a tutorial for it, but a factory reset is much like a normal reset below if wanted.

Thanks for the kind assist, @Wynona

I found Dell's official video on it. It turns out that Dell's method does this: you create an install media requiring a 16GB USB stick. Then you do the very large download of the ISO, consisting of Windows plus Dell's software. On my slow 1Mbps connection, that would have taken over 15 hours.

I avoided that drudgery and just did a Reflect restore, which took ten minutes. Else I would have done the Win11 Reset, with the builtin partition holding the source and so no mega download needed.

A very knowledgeable phone rep at Dell Customer Care told me that what was on the drive didn't matter, I could just have set a password on it and forced Dell to reconstruct the whole drive - which is what they do anyway in all cases. However, a very unknowledgable tech rep told the very opposite: that the returned computer MUST have any password removed.

By the way, my Dell ISO was 5.86GB [in 2016/17]. This is a bit bigger than the Windows 10 ISO file was at that time, 5.3GB. The Windows 10 ones have grown over time [my Version 21H2 ISO is 5.74GB] and I’d guess that the Dell one will always be a big bigger.
- The Dell instructions used to advise using a USB with at least 8GB - Dell Windows Recovery Image

- I cannot easily recheck that because it now demands a Dell account before the full instructions are displayed.


Personally, I think the time & effort of downloading an ISO is only worth it for the Windows 10/11 ISOs from MS. They can be used for Repair installs [a repair procedure rather than an installation] and the USB made from one can be used for Clean installs & Startup repairs - all without cluttering the place up with potentially unwanted/useless Dell utilities.
- You can always back up your current drivers using Backup and Restore Device Drivers - ElevenForumTutorials
- You can also download any Dell utilities that you actually want by entering your ‘Dell Service tag’ in Dell Drivers & downloads - Dell since they post the latest versions in the same list as updated drivers. The only one I bother with is QuickSet because it used to be required for those dual keys on the top row [Function keys switchable to multimedia keys].
The combination of a Windows 10/11 ISO from MS, driver backups & any desired Dell utility installation files is as useful as that Dell ISO.

I appreciate that all these things are awkward with a slow internet connection.
I use my phone as my internet connection & I rarely get better than a few Mbps.
I downloaded the Dell ISO when I got a new Dell computer in 2016 but, since then, have only downloaded Windows 10/11 ISOs from MS.


All the best,
Denis

After doing a Windows 'Reset this PC' with 'Remove everything' and 'Fully clean the drive' there is the option to shut down the computer right after the first setup screen appears (see below) for the next user to have an OOBE.

I see the OOBE option in the W10 tutorial, but not in the W11 tutorial. I hope the OOBE option is still available in W11? This maybe the most convenient (for buyer and seller) and reasonably secure option (for buyer) to return the device.

--------------------
If you would like to set up this PC to have an OOBE (Out-of-box Experience) so another user/owner can pick up at this point to finish setting up Windows on the PC with their own account and preferences the next time the PC it turned on, then:

1) Press SHIFT + F10 when you see the screenshot below to open a command prompt.
2) Type C:\Windows\System32\shutdown -s -t 0 -f into the command prompt, and press Enter to shut down Windows.
--------------------

Bob1212 said:

A very knowledgeable phone rep at Dell Customer Care told me that what was on the drive didn't matter, I could just have set a password on it and forced Dell to reconstruct the whole drive - which is what they do anyway in all cases. However, a very unknowledgable tech rep told the very opposite: that the returned computer MUST have any password removed.

Click to expand...

They might have been referring to different passwords - BitLocker ones & Bios ones. Dell can probably only reset any Bios password.

Denis

Try3 said:

View attachment 44970
- I cannot easily recheck that because it now demands a Dell account before the full instructions are displayed.

Click to expand...

You might get a kick out of this, Denis. I did login to get the full instructions and this is what I see. Dell's online docs have gone downhill and often involve clicking through endless short articles, simpleton fashion. But this one below gets right to the point:

Bob,

Oh. I saw the same dialog, assumed I must have entered the password incorrectly & gave up.
[My secure password list is in another room at the moment and I have so little faith in Dell's advice that it did not seem worth walking 20 yards.]

I hope you go down the route of using Windows ISO files from MS anyway.
When you do download ISOs, you might find that it's worth starting the download when you go to bed. That's what I do - even though I'm connected to a server that seems to be in Europe, it's always quicker when you & yours are busy snoring.


All the best,
Denis

Try3 said:

They might have been referring to different passwords - BitLocker ones & Bios ones. Dell can probably only reset any Bios password.

Denis

Click to expand...

Nope, she truly was very unknowledgeable, probably very new yet she got snippy with me. My guess is that Dell has hired a whole slew of new people, which is understandable, yet some come with bad attitudes. India seems in a gigantic work-from-home period again.

I also was told incorrect things about returning via Fedex, by several reps in a row. When I pointed out to one that a customer can indeed ship back to Dell without printing a label (he had wrongly insisted that I MUST print a label, else "how would Fedex know where it's supposed to go"), he hung up on me. You really have to call several times to get a knowledgeable rep.

Bob1212 said:

You really have to call several times to get a knowledgeable rep.

Click to expand...

I spent six months failing to get one.
My query was even escalated to supervisors that included the main rep from their spare parts dept.
Then I gave up.

All I wanted was to buy a spare battery from them directly [since no reliable seller offered genuinely-new 'genuine' Dell batteries for the Dell Inspiron 7779 at that time]. I did not find one for another year or so. Even though internally-fitted batteries are not as readily available as old-fashioned externally-replaceable batteries I was astonished by how difficult it was to get hold of one.


Denis