Sounds like it did not boot from the cd . . when it does you you will see a black screen with a prompt "Press any key to boot from cd" . . do that and you will be able to delete partitions and recreate the ones you want and proceed to formating and installing XP

That message can pass quickly, so have a finger on the keyboard when you boot.  This will delete all data on the drive so be sure you have your important data backed up.

You can get a reinstallation guide specific to your Dell here
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/software_reinstall/en/index?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

This is a good guide for reinstalling on a Dell:  http://www.djdenham.com/Install%20Procedures.htm#Install

wrs

Hi there,

Thanks.  Well, now is worse. I start the system, after Dell logo appears, the only thing i can see on the screen is:

"NTLDR is missing

Press....... to restart."

Any suggestion. U do not need to worry the data on the disk, I do have a back up on my portable disk. ALl I want to do is to fromat and install whatever OS as early as I can.

Tons of thanks for ur reply!

Well . . You can always boot from a win98 floppy start-up disc and delete all partitions, then install win98.

When you boot from the floppy, type "fdisk" . . without the "'s and use it to delete the partitions . . restart and install win98 from the cd.

good luck . . wrs

Hi there,

I really appreciate your help. Where can I down Load Win 98 Startup?

Many thanks

If you have a friend with Win09, you can make one on that machine . . or download here

wrs