Desktop Dimension 3100 / DV051 - delete partition / formatting PC

Question

Hello Community,

In our household, my roommate has an old DELL PC in the "common" area of our house. It's gunked up with some funk, and since this is an old PC and no longer under warranty and all that jazz, we want it cleared.

I would like to delete the partition, but I'm not sure how. To be honest, I'm not certain it has a partition... I guess I need help figuring out (1)if there's a partition, (2) how to remove it if one is found, and (3) whether just using my own windows XP disk to format, then using the XP key that dell provided will be sufficient to load the OS back on.

Thanks so much in advance.

Aegis

topmahof · Answer

if your xp disc is the same version as the os on the dell, (xp pro, xp home) and your disc came with your computer as a restore disc then yes you can delete the partition and install the os with your disc.  go into the bios and in boot order make sure the cd drive is the first boot device shown, then the hard drive.  if not follow the instructions and move the cd to the top.  then load the disc in the drive and shut the dell down. start it up and it will say press any key to boot from the cd. press a key. it  will load some stuff and then it will come to a point where it shows the c: and the os that's on it.  follow the instructions and delete it.  if there happens to be another letter with something on it, delete it as well.  you want to install your os on unpartitioned space that way you will use all the space on the drive.  windows will load and at the end the screen will go black and it will say press any key to boot from cd.  DON't press a key. you will have 2 OSs.   it will boot automatically to xp.  you will have to go to dell support and load all your drivers back in and they have to be loaded in a certain order or they won't work.  i'm not exactly sure what order they go in but there's feeds all over the forum that say what order.

shesagordie · Answer

AegisRose

How to carry out a clean reinstall of XP.

If you do not have an internal floppy drive, enter the system setup, scroll down to drives, press Enter or + to expand the drive menu then down to "SATA Operation", press Enter.

Change the SATA operation mode to "RAID Autodetect/ATA" press ESC to save and exit the BIOS.

First, disconnect all the peripherals from the system, except the keyboard, mouse and monitor.

You can use the Dell's Guide for a Manual Reinstallation of windows HERE and maybe this interactive guide for a clean reinstall of XP HERE can help.

While installing, remember to delete all existing partitions when you are prompted, then recreate the partitions and format the hard drive, following by installing XP.

Note: If you wish to keep Dell Diagnostics on the hard drive, don't delete the small EISA FAT16 partition.

After installing XP, you need to install the drivers and applications in the correct order, see HERE.

Followed by installing the Anti Virus utility, updating the definitions, then all the critical Microsoft updates.

Bev.

AegisRose · Answer

Thanks for the responses guys...  I'll take a stab at this during the week.  Wish me luck! :emotion-5:

shesagordie · Answer

AegisRose Good Luck. Bev.

walputnish · Answer

I have exactly the same problem plus I got a virus on my machine, so any help here would be great

shesagordie · Answer

walputnish

If you still have the original factory installed hard drive, there should be Dell's PC Restore utility on the hard drive, that restores the system to it's factory condition.

Dell's procedures for restoring the PC to it's factory condition are HERE.

If the Dell's PC Restore is not on the hard drive, then you would need to perform a clean reinstall of windows and load all the drivers and applications.

Bev.

Storage, Drives & Media

Desktop Dimension 3100 / DV051 - delete partition / formatting PC

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