Can't reinstall Windows

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@Jomaru wrote:
I recently contracted the virus by the name of Win32.Polipos, which totally decimated my hard drive for a lack of better words. I've already scanned my hard drive with my anti-virus to get what I need, and just as the virus is described as, it had infected every executable that is considered important, such as task manager. Though, I deleted nothing, after I rebooted my computer, I found that I could no longer access the internet, and for which, I'm using a lap top to be here.
The only way to get rid of this virus in my current position, is to format and reinstall windows. There's just a "little" problem with that.
First I made a boot disk, using Windows XP Home Edition SP 2, which didn't help. It lacked all the executables that are needed, like fdisk. Next I tried to just change drives to the C drive, but apparently it doesn't exist when I'm using a boot disk.
I tried using a Windows 98 startup disk, to no avail, and even down to a Windows 95 startup disk. Still the same problems, so to speak. My computer doesn't recognise that I have any hard drives, at all. The only thing that it does recognise is that I have my floppy A: drive.
My woes do not end just yet. I took out the floppy disk and just decided to reboot the OS and to my dismay, it's not recognising that I still have an additional 512MB of RAM ( bought from Dell, and have had for a few months now ) installed with the stock 256MB.
Are Dell computers immune to being fixed the old way or something? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. If not, I will have to resort to the other old way and just load up a old computer with my Dell hard drive and format/re-install the OS that way...

Systems shipped after July 15, 2004 came with Symantec PC Restore. This utility restores the computer to an "as-shipped" condition. If you haven't reformatted, repartitioned, or otherwise modified the master boot record, it should work. Click here for instructions about Symantec PC Restore.

If the Symantec PC Restore utility won't work, but still resides on your computer, a Dell customer has figured out some ways to get it to work again. Note - If you removed this partition, it is not recoverable, cannot be downloaded from the internet, and cannot be shipped from Dell. Click here for ways to fix Symantec PC Restore. Users have also reported that the partition can be restored with Ghost 2003, and Ghost 9 using the '03 capabilities of it. If you boot to the Ghost 9 CD, select Advanced Recovery Taks, select Utilities, then Restore Legacy Image it should work - but you want to verify the image before attempting the restore. It's in a folder called IMG.

Systems that shipped beginning in early 2005 ship without Windows XP. You can contact Dell and request a CD and wait for it to ship, see Contact Us at the bottom of the page.