Computer question

-dva-

-dva-

Active member
so my computer is completely overrun with viruses and spyware and is more or less non-functional. this happened once before, and i called dell support and they eventually talked me through a way to wipe the system clean by restoring the computer to its original, out of the box settings. i lost all my files and had to re-install office and everything, but it worked like a charm. i want to do this again, but can't remember how. i've tried googling it, but everything says you need to have your OS installation cd to do it, which i don't remember needing before.

is there a way to restore my original settings and wipe all my files without this cd (which i have misplaced over the years)? for reference i have a dell inspiron laptop running windows xp.

and of course, helpful answers will be rewarded with invaluable karma points
 
click on the windows thing

pull up all of ur programs

go to accessories

then system tools

then disk defragmentor

thats how i did it i'm pretty sure
 
disk defrag wont do anything. you need to reformat

pop in the xp or vista cd that came with your computer and boot from it. you can reinstall that way
 
Yes what you are looking to do is reformat, if you didnt need your OS cd to reinstall it seems likely that you had some sort of dell start up disk that would prompt you with the option of restoring to factory settings. Either way will work, same thing. Next time dont be such an idiot, and avoid getting all of that garbage in the first place~
 
when you start it up, at one of the initial screens it usually says like F4(not sure what number, but it is one of the F keys) for startup options, or something along those lines. If you hit it and look around in there, there should be an option to reformat the entire comp. And you shouldn't need the CD to do it this way

 
shut off your comp then when your turning it back on you hold like ctrl and f11 i think? a screen should pop up that allows you to reset it.. that works for mine so it might for yours
 
then how will i keep tabs on what your mom's been up to?

i kid. in fact, both times that my hard drive has crashed i've been on newschoolers watching videos here.
 
the control + f11 trick is actually what did it for me. i guess it only works for dells though, if anyone else its considering trying such things.
 
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