Hi

I need help, just not sure what kind. I just joined the site, I live in Ohio. I had a virus, got rid of it now no windows programs will open. the page comes up but it is blank. Most others will open. I have a Dell and run Windows XP Pro. I was just going to wipe it clean and start all over, since I have the lap top. But when I hit the ctrl-F12 key I think it is, it takes me to Safemode. It was so easy to do on my Presario. I will never get another Dell.lol. Can anyone help me with this? I have no recovery disc. Didn't need one with my Presario. I am no computer genius so please don't talk like I know what you mean. lol I just want it back to factory settings. Thanks in advance.

 

Shut down your computer then restart, what does it say to press for Recovery ??

 

Doesn't say anything about recovery. Only thing I see in right hand corner is Boot Menu F12:cry

 

On a Dell computer, you press F2 to enter the BIOS setup. From there, you can restore factory settings.

 

Thanks for the reply. I did that, and went thru the list. System Info drives onboard devices video performance security power management maintenane post behavior I don't see anything about reformatting. Lord I wish I wasn't so stupid about computers.

 

I apparently misunderstood what you wanted to do. In BIOS, you can't reformat the hard drive. Is that what you wanted to do?

 

I want to clean my hard drive, nothing loads that has to do with windows. Had a virus got rid of it and now can't load some pages. I tried to make it go to an earlier date, but that page won't load. I figure just wipe everything and get it back to like it should be out of the box. lol

 

There are a couple of programs for wiping the hard drive of all information. One is HDD Low Level Format Tool and another is DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke).

For DBAN, download the bootable ISO image and burn it to a CD. Then insert the CD into the CD drive and restart the computer. Go into the interactive mode and select the type of erasure you want. You can use a single pass if all you're going to do is re-install Windows afterward all the way up to 35 passes if you're going to get rid of the harddrive or computer.

With the HDD Low Level Format Tool, you'd need to remove the hard drive from the case and connect it to a working computer to accomplish the task — but, you could use that as a learning experience — it's not all that difficult.

Be advised though that both methods could take quite a bit of time. On my 80GB drive, DBAN takes 19 hours and 43 minutes for a single pass! But, it does an excellent job and I've been using it since 2004.

 

I have no way of re installing windows. dell doesn't give disks for that anymore along with a couple other companies. Sounds easier for me to take to someone and let them do it. lol thanks