Another Dell restore question

recyclingbox

Hi,
I have a Dell Optiplex sx270 that is about 7 years old and has XP installed. I have just started it up again after two years of inactivity (been using laptops instead). Despite having NO data files etc anywhere and all personal stuff and programs i know about removed it still only has 908MB freespace left (out of 20GB). I am assuming that doing a full restore using the disk that came with it will effectively let me start again as if the machine were new?
I have all the disks that came with it. My question is - how do i use the resore disk? do i just put it in the drive and let the PC do the rest and then go through all the other reinstallation disks following instructions? the restore disk says something along the lines of 'reinstallation of windows withs service pack 1a').

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Recycler

closed

Put the disc in and boot from it, you may need to alter the boot order in the bios to have the cd before the hard disk, or possibly press F12 at boot time to select CD boot.

There may be a factory restore partition too, see the manual, which should be available on the Dell website if you can't find it.

XP patched uses up about 3GB, so something is using the rest of your space.

Donnie

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother with that Windows XP SP1a disc. Go to PMs. I'll send you a later DELL disc.

recyclingbox

Donnie wrote: »

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother with that Windows XP SP1a disc. Go to PMs. I'll send you a later DELL disc.

Thanks for the offer.

However, I have an XP disk that came with the Dell laptop - this one has service pack 2 on it. will that be any use? i was assuming i would only be able to use the disc that came with the PC! obviously not...:)

Donnie

It should work. However, we are into SP3 now. So you can use yours and update immediately or use mine. Not a problem for me either way.

recyclingbox

Top man. thanks. i will give mine a go and then upodate as you suggest. although if all goes pear-shaped i will get back to you.

John_Gray

I would say that on a PC of that vintage Windows XP should only take up about 5 GB. Try TreeSize Free to find out what's using the rest of the space...

recyclingbox

Hi, thanks for the replies and advice so far.

i have used the XP disk and all goes well until i get to the 'choose partition' part there are three partitions listed one with 47MB, one with 9000 MB and one with 0MB. the one with 1000MB is marked C:- however, when i tried to put XP into here (its the only one big enough) it tells me there is already an operating system in there and that it may cause conflict. so what do i do? do i select that partition anyway? or do i need to do anything else?

fiddiwebb

Are you sure you don't have a recovery partition somewhere?

Try F11 at start up or it could be Ctrl + F11

closed

recyclingbox wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the replies and advice so far.

i have used the XP disk and all goes well until i get to the 'choose partition' part there are three partitions listed one with 47MB, one with 9000 MB and one with 0MB. the one with 1000MB is marked C:- however, when i tried to put XP into here (its the only one big enough) it tells me there is already an operating system in there and that it may cause conflict. so what do i do? do i select that partition anyway? or do i need to do anything else?

Format the partition first (assuming you don't want any data)

Donnie

recyclingbox wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the replies and advice so far.

i have used the XP disk and all goes well until i get to the 'choose partition' part there are three partitions listed one with 47MB, one with 9000 MB and one with 0MB. the one with 1000MB is marked C:- however, when i tried to put XP into here (its the only one big enough) it tells me there is already an operating system in there and that it may cause conflict. so what do i do? do i select that partition anyway? or do i need to do anything else?

Select it, delete it, then full format.