XP OS format

Load the XP CD in the top CD drive and restart

Press F12 for BOOT MENU at the dell logo screen

Select IDE CDROM hit enter

When you get the message “Press any key to boot from CD” hit enter immediately

Windows XP Setup screen will appear loading files

When the screen “Welcome to windows” appears

Press ENTER

Press F8 for license screen agreement

Now press ESC to continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing.

Now you will see an option in a rectangle box that says "C: Partition 2 {NTFS} 38107 MB <25237 MB Free> or Unpartitioned space 8 MB".

Highlight the one that says C: and hit "D" to delete the partition.

Now there will a message on the screen that says "To delete this partition", Press Enter. Setup will prompt you for confirmation before deleting the partition or To go back to the previous screen without deleting the partition, press ESC".

Press D to delete the partition.

There will be a new screen that says "You asked Setup to delete the partition C: Partition 2 {NTSC}, to delete this partition, press L Caution all data on this partition will be lost or To return to the previous screen without deleting the partition, press ESC.

Now press "L".

Now check the screen that says "To set up windows XP on the selected item, press Enter" or to Create a partition in the unpartitioned space press C, or to delete the selected partition, press D.

Highlight the unpartitioned space and press "C" to create a new partition.

The new screen will say "A new partition for Windows XP has been created on 38147 MB disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi {MBR} ".

In case you get an option to select the size while creating the partition please select the maximum size available.

Now Format the partition using the NTFS file system(Quick).

Now the new screen will say set up is formatting and set up is copying files now.

It will now take 3-4 minutes to copy all the files, after that it will restart the computer, please do not press any key while the system is restarting, just sit back and relax.

After the system restarts the actual installation of windows Xp will happen, which generally takes almost 45 minutes, during the installation you will be asked to select country, name and time zone, etc, make sure you select the relevant entries.

Once the 45 minutes process is complete , it will restart the system one more time, make sure not to press any key again, the system will do every thing by itself and then will take you to the windows xp desktop.

Now you will get a screen that says "An exciting New Look". Installing Windows in red. Setup will complete in approx 34 minutes".

After installation you will get "welcome screen for the first time"

Then wait till the system reaches the desktop.

Then  restart the system.