Can't Restore

i have a ****** dell slow as hell ive used ccleaner defrag everything and when i got to do a hard restore it says keyboard error. If i try to roll it back it only goes to today. I need to completley wipe this thing out. I have a copy of win xp but it won't boot from it.

 

If you have not got the Dell recovery discs,and you try to install XP, assuming XP is your present operating system, you need to have the drivers, - download from Dell support, giving the number on a sticker on the back of your computer- save these to a cd. Your XP/operating system original number should also be on the side/rear of your base unit.
If it is the same version that you have a disc on to reinstall, you can use the original number, if its a different version, you will need to use the number with the disc - If that number has already been used on another computer you will get WGA problems, when updating.
It is worth asking Dell for a recovery disc.
http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...general&message.id=199858&c=us&l=en&cs=&s=gen

 

To get your computer to boot from CD, press DEL, ( OR, F2), immediately that you start up, to get into the Bios setup. Click the arrow buttons to move to 'boot, option, and then click on the first boot item, press enter, and if you use the arrow up/down, it will change to cd rom as first boot, then press enter, then F10, to save and it will restsrt and look for the cdrom first.

 

i did that. I burned the winXP CD off of piratebay and used winrar to extract it and mounted it on to a CD. When i put the CD in when windows is running it pops up to install windows, however when i try to boot from it nothing happens.

 

Oops, you said the wrong thing. That's what you get when you pirate something. Get the restore disks as was mentioned.

 

Sorry - no support for pirated software - if you formatted without the /s, then a Dell recovery disc will not work, either.
Thanks augiedoggie- posted together

 

That's good to know.