How to reformat a Dell

[Elscire]

i know i've made a post like this a while back.....
my brother gave me his old dell(2002 version) yesterday. his dell was full of garbage and from every trojan virus to evry spyware, i need to reformat this. i've tried putting in the recovery disk but it doesn't boot up from when it turns on. i have tried to download the windows XP full version from the disk which took 52 minutes but all it did was made it look like it was reformatted but it still have all the files. (i really need to reformat this myself because i don't want to pay 119 dollars for the computer guys to do this, and right now its slow as hell) i need REALLY DETAIL directions.

[JunkBondTrader]

You do realise that by reformatting you'll blank everything? OK, I'll tell you how. Does the recovery disk contain a full version of Windows? If so put it in and reinstall. If you can't boot from the CD then go into BIOS or Setup or whatever Dell calls it. You should probably be able to do thish by pressing F2 or DEL during startup. Once there look for "Boot" or "Boot options" and change the first boot device to CD-ROM. Then just boot into the Windows installer and select "New installation" then delete the old partition.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE RIGHT DRIVERS FOR YOUR COMPUTER OR IT MAY NOT WORK. Without drivers you may not have working sound or 3D accelaration.

If this fucks up your computer then don't blame me. I warned ya'!

Good luck!