Reformating Dell Computers. NEED HELP

gobbles

Hey. I need help with wiping/reformating my Laptop. It is a inspiron 1520. Does anyone have any ideas as to how go about reformating it. I think I know it has something to do with pressing F12 as the computer boots up, but I dont know where to go from there.....
Thanks for any help

MarkR

1. Find the xp disc.
2. Put it in CD drive
3. Reboot computer
4. Press F12 when you see dell logo.
5. Select CD Drive
6. Press some button to continue
7. Follow instruction by pressing any key to boot from cd
8. Follow steps on this page for the rest of the install (from step 7 on really)

Link - http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp

NullZer0

gobbles wrote: »

Hey. I need help with wiping/reformating my Laptop. It is a inspiron 1520. Does anyone have any ideas as to how go about reformating it. I think I know it has something to do with pressing F12 as the computer boots up, but I dont know where to go from there.....
Thanks for any help

I have one of these... there is a recovery partition on it. To the best of my knowledge, all of these machines came with Vista pre-installed.
Hit F8 at windows startup, it should give you the option to restore your computer?

I cant check at the moment because I purposely deleted my recovery partition but give it a go. Its completely automatic.




EDIT:
Gotcha -

1 Turn on the computer.

2 As the computer starts, press <F8> on the keyboard until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears on the screen.

Note:
You must press <F8> before the Windows logo appears on the screen. If you press <F8> after the Windows logo appears on the screen, the Advanced Boot Options menu will not appear on the screen. If you do not see the Advanced Boot Options menu, restart the computer, and then repeat this step until you see the menu on the screen.

3 Press the <Down Arrow> on the keyboard to select Repair Your Computer on the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then press <Enter>.

4 Specify the language settings that you want, and then click Next.

5 Log in as a user who has administrative credentials, and then click OK.

6 Click Dell Factory Image Restore.

7 In the Dell Factory Image Restore window, click Next.

8 Click to select the Yes, reformat hard drive and restore system software to factory condition check box.

9 Click Next.
The computer is restored to the default factory configuration.

10 When the restore operation is completed, click Finish to restart the computer.
The software is now installed as it was when the computer was first received.


Hope that helps

gobbles

Hey Thanks your help. Im pretty sure I got it now.