You will lose everything on the drive when you reformat so be sure to back up any data you want to keep...documents, pictures, email, address book, Favorites, etc....to another computer or to CD before you ever start the reformat/reinstall process.
Your Dell should have come with some CDs. Among them is one with the operating system on it. It might be labled "Recovery" or "Restore" but more likely it will say "Operating System."
You need to put that CD in the CD drive and reboot the computer. It should boot to the CD and not into Windows. If it doesn't, you'll need to go into the BIOS and set the CD drive to first in the boot order.
To do that, watch the screen during the boot process and when the Dell logo comes up, there should be a couple of lines (mine are in the upper right-hand corner) telling you what key to press to "enter setup." Press that key. Then use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate around in the Bios to the "Boot" section, use the instructions on the screen (usually at the bottom or side) to figure out how to move the CD-ROM drive up to first position. Once it's done, choose "Exit Saving Changes."
It should then continue the boot process but this time it will use the CD. Dells recovery/restore CDs are easy to use. Just read each screen as it comes up, follow the directions and make the choices.
After the operating system is installed, find the CD that says on the label it has all the drivers. With Windows running, put that CD in the CD drive, wait for it to start up and then read the directions thoroughly. It's easy enough to use once you've read the directions. Skip that reading step and you could get lost.
Once the drivers are reinstalled, it's time to start reinstalling your other software and restoring that data (if any) you backed up.
Thanks
Linear Mode
