Does Dell's PC restore delete rootkits?

was advised to reinstall/reformat my OS to be 100% clean.

Please Read This Before Posting On the Malware Removal Forum  It's up to you, but we have been very successful in removing that rootkit.

If you decide to go back to Factory Settings and that doesn't work, your last resort would be the reformat/reinstall of Vista.

thanks for your reply.  I understand TDL4 can be cleaned, but there is no way to know for sure if the system is 100% clean. I've done a lot of research on this and have requested cleaning assistance on another malware forum. I use the laptop for banking and financial work, so having it clean is very important to me.   I take it from your response that Dell's PC Restore to factory settings is not the same as a reformat/reinstall of Vista.  I think I'm going to proceed with the reformat/reinstall. Thanks!

According to Bleepingcomputer.com:

A "factory restore" essentially reformats your hard drive, removes all data and restores the computer to the state it was in when you first purchased it. Most computers manufactured and sold by OEM vendors come with a vendor-specific Recovery Disk or Recovery Partition for performing a clean "factory restore". Read Technology Advisory Recovery Media.

Some factory restore partitions/partitions/disks give you all the options of a full Microsoft Windows CD, but with better instructions and the convenience of having all the right hardware drivers. Others can do nothing except reformat your hard drive and restore it to the condition it was in when you bought the computer. Either way, you will need to reinstall any programs that did not come preinstalled with your computer and run Windows update to redownload all critical patches.

With that said, there are no guarantees when it comes to malware removal. Infections and severity of damage will vary. While there are some types of malware which may resist reformatting (or a factory reset), in most cases such action will get rid of the infection.

For example, there are some rootkits and bootkits which can alter (overwrite) the Master Boot Record (MBR) drive to ensure persistent execution of malicious code and the MBR would need to be repaired. Other types of malware can infect recovery partitions and even render them unusable. If the recovery partition has become infected, you will need to contact the computer manufacturer, explain what happened and ask them to send full recovery disks to use instead. If you lost or misplaced your recovery disks, again you can contact and advise the manufacturer. In many cases they will send replacements as part of their support or charge a small fee.

But actually, you may not need to do a factory restore to remove rootkit infections on your PC. There will be some other effective way to fix the problem. For example, you can use a professional malware removal tool that can clean rootkits. That way is much easy, time-saving and trouble-free.