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Can't reformat for the life of me!! [Inspiron 1520]
Alright, so I use a Dell Inspiron 1520 (Windows XP Home). I bought it used about a year and a half ago,
so the warranty is long gone. I just recently moved, so I don't have my CD's. :emotion-45:
I'm pretty sure there's problems in my registry, & I have spyware up the ying-yang. My computer is just
really slow, & I'd like to reformat it. Problem is, I don't know if I need the CD's or not. I've read something
about a seperate partition that recent Dell's have, that stores XP/Vista on, so you don't need CD's to reformat,
but I can't seem to figure it out. I've heard tons of stuff about hitting "Ctrl + F11" at the Dell boot menu, but
that never works for me. I understand sometime's it doesn't, but I've tried it TONS of times. Along with F8, F12, F11, F-everything.
If anyone can shed some light on this for me, & help me get this process going I would
appreciate it more than I can explain.
Thanks a bunch!
-Josh
jackshack
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May 20th, 2009 12:00
The trouble with the CTRL - F11 process is that you must be using the original hard drive that was delivered by Dell along with the computer. If the first owner replaced the drive you will not have this feature.
It is possible to tell by watching the computer boot. If you have the special Dell Master Boot Record that facilitates the process, you will see a blue bar at the top of the screen immediately following completion of the self test. This lasts for about two seconds, followed by a message just below the bar stating "Loading Descriptor for PBR-2...Done." In a properly working system, the PBR-2 message disappears before you can read it all.
If you see the blue bar and the message you should have a functional PC Restore feature. Activate it by starting the machine and pressing CTRL and F11 toward the end of the self test, releasing both keys simultaneously before you see the message about loading PBR-2. Once that message appears you can't trigger the PC Restore menu. If you successfully bring up the PC Restore Menu, and choose to restore the system to its factory delivered state, the process requires less than twenty minutes, less than ten minutes on some machines.
Warning: This feature will overwrite all information on the hard drive. Anything you wish to keep needs to be saved to external media. When done, the only information left on the drive will be the original software installed by Dell.
If you can't get PC Restore working, you must either retrieve your CDs or try posting on one of the boards in the Virus/Malware section of the forum.