I need help with a Clean Install on my Dell Computer. I should have said "how do you do it?"
Please make the instructions as easy as possible, think of it like talking to a two year old.
This is where I am at.
When the black screen appears(black screen with Windows XP (home ed.) in the center), in the upper right hand corner there is a prompt:
F2= set-up
F12= boot

I press F12, I get
1. normal
2. Primary master drive
3. diskette
4. hard-disk drive C
5. IDE CD-rom

6. system set-up
7. IDE drive diagnostics
8. boot to utility partition
enter choice:_
what do I do now? I am trying to clean install windows XP on my computer. I think I may have downloaded a virus or a worm. So I would just like to start from scratch and reinstall everything I have including a protection program I just bought.
When I try to reinstall from windows, I hit run(from the start menu), then in the command box, I type "cmd" then a error messages appears and tells me to run virus software. I try to run software and nothing happens. So that is why I want to clean and reinstall XP from boot-up.
I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say, if not please ask beacause I have no idea what I'm doing. Any help would be greatly appericated.
Thank you for your time and help.

I always just boot the computer up with the XP CD already in the drive and go from there.

You can't do an clean install from within Windows.
As said ,boot with the CD in the drive and follow the prompts.

You want to select options 5 from the boot menu. IDE CD-ROM. Windows setup will load and simply go through the motions.

Big D

I always just boot the computer up with the XP CD already in the drive and go from there.
Dean
I tried that, it starts to run but just stops after a few minutes. If I try to clean install through windows, I get error messages and everything freezes.
Thanks everyone for your help! I appreciate it.

XP is a painless install, why are you reinstalling? If it is freezing you may have another problem. I have had RAM or a hard drive cause issues on a reinstall. Please give us some more information

Like everyone else said just boot up with the cd in the drive. This is a perfect time to play with your computer on how to rid the virus or a worm trying different things so if you do screw it up worse just do a reinstall of XP then, that way you can learn from it. This is how I learned about manual removal of virus or a worm and how they effect a computer. I cant remember how many times I have reinstalled XP over the years, LOL:D

Like everyone else said just boot up with the cd in the drive. This is a perfect time to play with your computer on how to rid the virus or a worm trying different things so if you do screw it up worse just do a reinstall of XP then, that way you can learn from it. This is how I learned about manual removal of virus or a worm and how they effect a computer. I cant remember how many times I have reinstalled XP over the years, LOL:D

If his PC is set with CD/ROM as his primary boot device, sometimes it is the hard drive or floppy that is set to number 1. Also make sure you have USB thumb drives out of the system before you try to reinstall.

Like everyone else said just boot up with the cd in the drive. This is a perfect time to play with your computer on how to rid the virus or a worm trying different things so if you do screw it up worse just do a reinstall of XP then, that way you can learn from it. This is how I learned about manual removal of virus or a worm and how they effect a computer. I cant remember how many times I have reinstalled XP over the years, LOL:D


Lol.. sucks to be you... I've installed XP once on my home PC.... The hardware has all been upgraded while my HD remains the same, over 5 years now.

The key is to not hose your OS.

Big D

I need help with a Clean Install on my Dell Computer. I should have said "how do you do it?"
Please make the instructions as easy as possible, think of it like talking to a two year old.
This is where I am at.
When the black screen appears(black screen with Windows XP (home ed.) in the center), in the upper right hand corner there is a prompt:
F2= set-up
F12= boot

You should be getting the F2 or F12 choice BEFORE any operating system is being booted.

I press F12, I get
1. normal
2. Primary master drive
3. diskette
4. hard-disk drive C
5. IDE CD-rom

Not all BIOS are created equal and options differ. It looks like when you press F12 and get a menu of what you want to do. Ensure the XP-CD is in the CDROM drive when this menu appears and select option #5. I'm assuming that #1 through #5 are shown to allow you to choose which device you wish to boot from.

If that doesn't work, press F2 at startup and see if you can set the CDROM drive as your first boot device. Many BIOS setups let you do this, some don't. If yours does, simply reboot with the CD installed.

My Dell desktop allows booting from a CDROM and when there is a bootable CD in the drive I get a 10-second or so warning to press any key to boot from that CD. Kind of a safety warning in case there's a bootable CD in the drive but I don't want to boot from it; 10-seconds or so (whatever the time is) if I haven't pressed the <Enter> key, the PC will go ahead and boot from the first hard drive.

6. system set-up
7. IDE drive diagnostics
8. boot to utility partition
enter choice:_
what do I do now? I am trying to clean install windows XP on my computer. I think I may have downloaded a virus or a worm. So I would just like to start from scratch and reinstall everything I have including a protection program I just bought.
When I try to reinstall from windows, I hit run(from the start menu), then in the command box, I type "cmd" then a error messages appears and tells me to run virus software. I try to run software and nothing happens. So that is why I want to clean and reinstall XP from boot-up.
I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say, if not please ask beacause I have no idea what I'm doing. Any help would be greatly appericated.
Thank you for your time and help.

You definately cannot install Windows from within Windows itself. Among many other things, the registry cannot be created because you're using the registry when you're in Windows.

It's often to one's advantage to reload Windows now and then and start with a clean slate. All the trial stuff, old programs not being used, malware, etc. can bloat a registry and slow your system down. Just be sure you have the Windows Key, you've backed up any data files to a USB dirve/CD/etc. and note userids and passwords that you've told software to 'remember' for you.

first step: boot up the computer in DOS and type in
format;C (or format:C- i haven't had to do it in a while)
select "yes" when it asks if you are sure you want to delete everything.
once that's done, put the XP install cd into the drive and start the computer and boot it from the cd.
there are a lot of steps i missed, but i figured out how to do it back when i had WIN 98 and had to do it every 6 months..

XP's install will format the drive for you whether you want it to or not so that's a wasted step.

some dell pcs have the OS loaded on the hidden partition. something like alt f9 to reload

XP's install will format the drive for you whether you want it to or not so that's a wasted step.
It never has for me. :confused:

How do you boot up in DOS?

You need a Win 98 boot disk - http://www.bootdisk.com/ -select the Win98SE if you need one

XP's install will format the drive for you whether you want it to or not so that's a wasted step.

It never has for me. :confused:

How do you boot up in DOS?

Booting from an XP disk to reload the software has options to do a quick format (deletes the master file table only but actually leaves data on the drive) or a full format where the entire disk is formatted. Before formatting you should also have a choice as to what partition you want to use - and you can delete any existing partition and create one or multiple partitions at that point and then format them.

To boot to DOS, you need a bootable DOS formatted floppy with the format and fdisk programs on it if you're going to manually format a drive and be sure to use the proper switches to format the drive with a viable file system (FAT32, NTFS, etc.). Been so long since I've used a DOS floppy but with today's hard disk sizes I don't know if even DOS 6.22 can format a large drive successfully - hard to find data on MS-DOS any longer.

But as noted, you can format a hard drive from the XP install procedure. The only reason I could see to use DOS to format a hard drive is if it's the only drive you have and you want to erase everything on it including the operating system.

I always DoD wipe a PC before reinstalling an operating system. You can use gdisk from ghost or a free utility like dban boot & nuke that works well.
http://www.dban.org/download

I would like to thank everyone for their help. I did mess somethings up while I tried to do a clean install (thats why I haven't been on here sooner). I finally had messsed things up I had to get professional help(for the computer, not me, yet).
Again thank you everyone, its nice to see so many people willing to take time out of their day to help out.
THANK YOU!!!!