Help, how do I do a restore from boot mode?

icefall

No did not get the windows xp cd with the computer.

Did not get any cd's with it in fact. Would it be an idea to email Dell and request one?

albertross_2

yes ... phone might work better.

what do you have on the PC you are using now? Any XP CD's with that?

icefall

dell tech help phone line is closed till Monday, I do not have any xp cd's in house right now.

Do have a friend with one, (Fujitsu Siemens xp home cd), would I be able to use that, because if so it will take time, probably will not get it till tomorrow or Monday as they do not live close by.

EDIT going to give up for a bit now, thanks to all for your advice and replies, I at least do not feel so alone, with everyone doing their best to help, thats what I love about this website, the community spirit.

Anyway sorry to go all soft, will update you

icefall

Just to let you know, I called the Dell tech support line and as I wanted to keep my files if possible they sent me the xp windows home repair cd (amongst others), had to pay £34 for the tech support as the 1 year warranty does not cover software only hardware.

The Dell tech man did lots of fiddling around (unplugging keyboard, safe mode etc). The cds though posted last mon did not arrive, so on Friday I rang and made a fuss (after the Dell tech support guy phoned me every day tues to thurs to see if cds had arrived). A manager re sent the cds, they arrived today at 2pm by courier. I spoke to Dell tech support manager (a different one) and after 2 hours, of trying finally got my computer working!!! :j

He tried doing a system restore (from bios), with the xp repair cd in, but that would not work the files were corrupted, then tried repairing the xp home files with the repair cd, it got stuck 3/4 of the way through. We were just about to try restoring back to factory settings (thereby losing all my files and settings in the process) when I said please can we try one more time to reboot. He said ok, rebooted the xp repair cd started doing its stuff again, went straight to the place where it had stalled previously and then completed!!

So my mouse and keyboard are working again, I really missed my puter was without it for 9 and a half days altogether, but I am glad I waited because I did not lose my files in the end. I know I am lucky to have this result, so I am now backing up my photos etc like crazy!! Think I learned a lesson here! They said if I want to download updates from dell to use my tag id (of my computer) which will prevent errors. (Somehow I think I will be too scared to do that for a good while anyway)

Dell were in the end very patient with me wanting to keep my files, and the tech support was really good, kept calling me back as needed, well worth £34 to keep all my files.

Anyway just thought I would let you all know, the end result.

To the poster who said I probably downloaded a file for windows 64 bit pc, I think they were right.