Dell Latitude x200 laptop reload

Hi all, new guy here...
Found alot of great info here so far after getting a give a way laptop from work. The laptop is a Dell Latitude x200 with no cd drive. The laptop had been in storage and the company was dumping them. This was the nicest one but I realized after getting it up and running that it had been infected most likely by previous owner. That is the issue that brought me here the laptop has a malware/spyware/trojan infection. I've been going through all the info in the malware removal section and have had some success cleaning things up. But I fear that I may end up having to do the full clean install and am not sure how to go about it without the laptop having an on board cd drive. Can anyone point me in the right direction to get this cleanly resolved. Until then, I'll keep following the steps laid out in the malware removal section. Thanks for any and all assistance. mack

 

Another strange thing I noticed is that everytime I try to load ZoneAlarm I get a message that the True Vector service can not be started then the install hangs as does the computer. On reboot things are hung up at the desktop start screen (no icons) and I have to kill the start and boot safe mode to remove ZoneAlarm. Then things come back up fine.

Anyone got anything on reloading the X200?
Thanks, mack

 

Does the computer have an empty bay for a CD drive? If so, you may want to get one and put it in. That would probably be the smartest move to easily install windows and possibly burn backup images.
Go into the BIOS and see what is listed as possible boot devices. If it allows booting from a network device, you may have to use that to install windows.
Note: I don't know how that works, only that it is a possibility when you have no floppy nor optical drive.

 

x200 does not have a built in cd drive. it came with an external fire wire cd/dvd drive, hence less than 1kg weight.
any firewire or external usb cd drive should do the job