You will need to recreate the partitions that you want.

 

When you run the setup program for WinXP, it will give you the opportunity to set up the partition that you want to install WinXP on. 

 

For a clean install of WinXP, visit Paul Thurrott's site for a well written step by step procedure.

Once the OS is installed, you will need to install some drivers and they are to be installed in a partitcular order.  Here is a link that describes how to do this.

 

If you're trying to get information off the machine, yes, as long as you haven't done much to the drive.  If you're trying just to re-install Windows, then don't worry about the recovery.

 

I've successfully used a disk recovery program to recover a reformatted machine.  I used PC Tools File Recover before and it was able to recover files from a machine someone had re-installed Windows on.  There are other tools you can use out there.  You need a program that can read sector by sector (ignoring the current file structure) and recover files.  File Recover only recovers certain file types so download the trial and see if it's right for what you want to do.

 

If you don't care about what's on the machine, just get your CD and re-install Windows, the Dell specific software, and drivers.

 

You're not the only person to have done this so don't feel too bad.

Thank you.  The information you provided was great.  I first tried repairing XP as instructed with Paul's great step by step.  Numerous files could not be deleted which I skipped after one retry.  The installation seemed to stall becuase after several hours it still indicated install would complete in 52 mins.  This AM I started again following Paul's step by step.  I chose to format the partion at the appropriate step (data recovery is not critical, it is backup on desktop).  It may be stalled again because it has displayed the formatting is 65% complete for over two hours.

 

Any suggestions?

Is the computer frozen or did the format just stop?

 

If the computer is locked up, you may have bad memory.  Download memtest86+ from here, burn it to a CD and boot the CD.  Let it run for a while and see if anything pops up.

 

If memtest doesn't find any errors after an hour or two, the system is OK and I'd suspect a bad hard drive.

When I tried to extract the memtest files it asked for a password.  Am I missing some steps?

I just downloaded the pre-compiled iso from here.  It didn't ask for a password when I opened it and drug the file to the desktop.

 

Is that the file you downloaded?

Download the Notebook System Software, chipset and other drivers from the Dell website here.  Load them in that order.  You can get full instructions here on how to install Dell software on a clean Operating System.

Thanks to everyone who has responded.  I was finally able to reinstall XP after reformatting C drive.

 

NEW ISSUE:  The wireless card is no longer recognized nor is the audio card.  Would it be safe to reload Dell Utilities & Drivers from the disk that came with our desktop?  Will I need any software for the wireless card, if so from what source should I get the files?

 

Again, thank you everyone for your suggestions.  Without them I would not have been able to reinstall the OS.  Right now the laptop is only able to be used to play games - not a very productive use. 

Thank you again for very useful information.  It seems that on the instructions site your message directed me it is necessary to select individual components.  Did I understand that correctly?  You truly do have a novice here, how do I know which components to select?

Select video as "ATI Mobile Radeon 9000"

Select your Windows Version (Home or Pro)

Select the "Latitude D600"

 

That should give you the install instructions.