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@cochrab wrote:

The original disk is labeled Dell Product Recovery CD and in small print says Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, so I am fairly certain it is a recovery disk.  The drivers and utilities etc. were on separate disk unlike how they ship today! 

 

Several more questions... contrary to the instructions I read, I was thinking of leaving the bios version as it since it has worked fine with everything in the Win XP  that I have been using.   thoughts on that?  Dell seems to advocate not tinkering with it if all is working ok.

 

When I upgraded to XP, I kept the Fat32 file setup and everything has been working fine.  Is there any reason to alter that vote in the clean install I am planning?

 

Thanks!! 

 

On bios, don't touch if newer versions don't fix issues you have.

 

On file format, there is no reason to KEEP FAT32, go with NTFS.

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@rickfaldo wrote:

I am having a similar problem with a Dell XPS T600 with a 10 gig hard drive(way too small I know, but trying to get by for a while longer before upgrading to new computer).  I upgraded to Windows XP Pro but in doing so, lost most of my available disk space.  Now I too want to start over with a clean installation of XP Pro.  When I reboot with the Dell Dimension resource CD, I get a choice of booting with or without CD support.  When choosing with CD support, in order to access Clean 1K utility, the system no longer recognizes the cd drive.  I am afraid to format the drive as I am unsure if the system will recognize the XP installation disk.  The boot sequence I have in the setup is cd, floppy, hard drive.....don't get why it finds the cd drive with the resource cd in it but when I get to the dos prompt, it loses the drive.....or at least it can't read the disc.  Also changes to drive A when the dos prompt appears.....weird.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

Rick

Remove the Resource CD.  Put in the XP CD and boot to it.  Delete all partitions, make 1 new one.

 

FYI, with a 10gb drive you'll barely fit.

I am having a similar problem with a Dell XPS T600 with a 10 gig hard drive(way too small I know, but trying to get by for a while longer before upgrading to new computer).  I upgraded to Windows XP Pro but in doing so, lost most of my available disk space.  Now I too want to start over with a clean installation of XP Pro.  When I reboot with the Dell Dimension resource CD, I get a choice of booting with or without CD support.  When choosing with CD support, in order to access Clean 1K utility, the system no longer recognizes the cd drive.  I am afraid to format the drive as I am unsure if the system will recognize the XP installation disk.  The boot sequence I have in the setup is cd, floppy, hard drive.....don't get why it finds the cd drive with the resource cd in it but when I get to the dos prompt, it loses the drive.....or at least it can't read the disc.  Also changes to drive A when the dos prompt appears.....weird.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

Rick