I recently purchased a used Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop. It still has all of the previous owner's?

Question

files, etc. on it. I want to reformat and reinstall Windows XP. I need the step by step procedure to do this. I was told that because this computer is in hd that I either couldn't do it or that there was a special process to reformat. I had reformatted my previous desktop running XP several times. Is it the same? If not, can someone give me the step by step instructions?

Answer 1

It seems that there is a recovery partition.  Here's Dell's step by step instructions:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/sy...

If that doesn't work, you need the recovery set of discs.  If you don't have them, you can order them from Dell.  Or you could use an XP installation disc and download the drivers from the Dell website.  You won't have all the software Dell bundles in.