Re: I want to do a clean re-format

Thanks everyone who responded. I've carefully read all your responses and I
understand all that each of you have said.

Here's what's going on now:
At first, I didn't understand that I needed to boot from the cd-rom (E:
drive), so I ran the Dell re-install disks from Windows. My previous files
were suppose to be overwritten (I thought), but the extra overflow of files
stayed on my PC. In other words, my pc was not cleaned or deleted, even
though that's what I asked for. Now I have 2 sets of Window XP OSs on my
puter. That caused my pc much grief. Nothing has worked right since then.
FYI I have a 120 GB hard drive. An MVP told me that I could not get a clean
reformat with a HD that large. Is that true? I don't know.????

Now, for some unknown reason, when I try to change the boot order in my
bios, I am able to accomplish changing the order of boot to the cd-rom to
the point of saving the changes and exiting by pressing "ESC". At that
point, nothing happens (no save and no exit) and I'm stuck in Bios at that
point. I couldn't get out of the Bios, so I had to hard boot out.

My pc is still a mess, so this time I'm trying to be a little more careful
and learn as much as I can before trying to reformat again.

So....thanks for any help everyone. My own patience is getting a little
frazzled, but I'm hanging in there. <smile>

Bill


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