Am I all set for a reformat?

November 26, 2009

Hey everyone. I plan on doing a reformat, but before I get started with that, I am going to put everything I want on to an external hard drive for later retrieval.
(The reason I am doing this is because my computer is getting really slow with loading files, the registry is a mess even though I use CCleaner, Defrag, and virus softwares like norton, malwarebytes.. etc.. and my computer is 7 years old now…)
After I got all my songs, pictures, movies, and whatever else on my external hard drive, I am going to reformat. My computer came with the following CD’s

-Microsoft Works Suite 2003 (Disc 1-5)
-APPLICATION For Reinstalling Dell Tools System Software
-APPLICATION For Installing/Reinstalling Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.2 Basic
-Drivers And Utilities Dell Dimension Resource CD (Contains drives, diagnostics and utilities and computer documentation.)
-OPERATING SYSTEM Reinstallation CD for XP Home Edition SP 1.
-Sound Blaster Live!
-Norton Antivirus
Ahh thanks for reminding me to backup favorites!

Restoring/reinstalling (?) a computer?

July 21, 2009

i have a computer that is pretty virus-ridden and really can’t be saved. i’ve managed to back up everything before it stopped accepting usb drives and writable discs, which is good. i have a bunch of discs that dell sent me a while ago in order to do this. i have… (1) dell dimension resource cd, with device drivers, diagnostics and utilities, and computer documentations (2) reinstallation cd – windows xp professional service pack 2 (3) installation disc for roxio easy cd creator (4) disc for reinstalling dell tools system software – antivirus, support, multimedia, internet software. // now, which should i use first, and what exactly do i do? i know i should probably just call dell, but i hate phone support. i’d rather do it on my own.

or, alternately, where on the web can i find instructions to do this?