hathaer1 Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 I am trying to reformat my desktop and have been following the instructions in the owners manual that came with it,i have inserted the operating system cd (windows XP)i then shut it down and restarti press F12 for the boot menui select IDE CD rom device (option 5)then instead of booting from the drive it starts up normalyis there any other way to reformat my drive? All the advice i can find on the internet seems just to repeat the instructions in my manualThanksEric Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DigitalMan Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Even if there was another way to reformat the drive, you'll still need to boot to the CD to install your operating system. Does the disk drive function correctly while you are booted into your current operating system? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hathaer1 Posted July 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Yes the drive is working fine Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DigitalMan Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Does it give the following prompt: "Press any key to boot from CD..."? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hathaer1 Posted July 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 No, it just loads windows Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DigitalMan Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Hmm I'm not sure then. Sorry. I don't really have a dell to play around with. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 Does your Dell have 2 optical drives (CD-RW & DVD-Rom)? If so place the CD in the DVD drive due to it being the master optical drive. Also you may need to use the F2 option to access the Bios and change the boot order to CD-Rom as the first boot device. Dell sets it to boot from the HDD first to save boot time. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hathaer1 Posted July 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 That worked! thanks for your help.How did you guys know i had a Dell?Eric Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DigitalMan Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 i press F12 for the boot menuThat's how I knew Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 i press F12 for the boot menuThat's how I knew Ditto. I just finished cleaning up a Dell along with a couple of HPs. Now I have to attack a badly infected Emachine. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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