The BIOS resides on a chip on your motherboard.  Therefore, erasing the hard disk will have absolutely no effect on your BIOS.

Steve

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@carolbell wrote:

I do not have a bootable cd drive nor a floppy drive.  I read some instructions that all I need to do is change the bios to boot to the cd.  So, this is probably a stupid question, when I change the bios to boot to a cd and then format everything and put in my windows xp disk will the bios still know to boot to the cd after I have erased everything???

 

thanks Carol

 

You don't format everything and then put in the XP CD, you put in the XP CD and as part of the install process you format.

hi. I have a 4700 dell dimension.  according to the dell instructions and other posts I just have to set the bios to boot to cd.  Am I missing something?

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@carolbell wrote:

well maybe I am using the wrong term.  Currently i can not boot to my cd drive.  I tried by putting in a bootable disk like Win XP setup disc.  The instructions I said if it doesnt boot then go into the bios and change it to boot to your cd drive.  so I guess the cd drive is bootable but it is not set up to boot to the ard cd drive.  I am suppose to a reinstall tomorrow.  carol

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Based on the information you've provided, it begs some questions.

1) Why are you reinstalling XP?  For what purpose?

2) If you don't know how to make your CD drive bootable, are you really comfortable doing a re-install and having to load all your drives and software?  You don't sound confident that you can do it.

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@carolbell wrote:

Well I really feel like I have no choice.  I bought this computer in Dec. 2004 and since then it has had nothing but problems with IE and printer, etc.  I have talked with Dell numerous times and they say it is the ISP cause I get "page cant be found" on certain web sites and also email doesnt work all the time.  I talk with ISP and they say it is Dell.  Well after three different ISP and numerous converstaions with Dell they said it is a Microsoft OS problem and I should contact Microsoft.  Will I dont want to spend $4 a min. to talk with microsoft and Dell wont help.  I talked with a girl at AOL and she said she had the same problem with her 4700 and had to do a reinstall.  So even though I have a warranty, and two years techincial support it is left up to a novice to fix my computer.  You are right I dont feel comfortable doing a reinstall and that is probably why I am posting all these stupid questions.  I have done a reinstall on win 98 my old computer a few times and it did get easier but all in all a reinstall to me is a long tedious task.  I appreciate your concerne but like I said I dont have any other choice.  Carol

 

That's why I asked.  If you want the computer "as shipped", simply reboot and hit CTRL F11 at the Dell screen.  It will reinstall everything just like it came out of the box.  No reason to install XP from scratch.