i have a dell with xp. my pc got a virus............... had the virus removed.(60 virus). maybe i should start back when i noticed problems. i wanted to totaly remove a program, so i went to regedit. it stated that admim won't let me. I am admin on my pc. I then had problems with IE would not let me online at all. i was told i could reinstall to factory settings. did try it, still would not work. oh also my dvd drive won't work. so i can't reinstall from cd. I had an old floppy drive that i put in pc to try and boot from floppy. went on line to made xp bootable from another pc in house. it said can't find address on floppy, so it couldn't make a copy. (I never heard of that). all i want is to get my pc working. i thought of formating the hard drive, but need to know how i can reinstall xp. i know that the cd rom will only go to the hidden xp install. so if formatted that will be gone too. i even went to dos in safemode to dell\utilities\dsrboot_dsr.exe i could only go to dell\utilities
i can see it in dir, but can't get to it. I feel so lost without my PC

Yes, the bootable restore CD that came with the computer will access the hidden restore partition. It then formats and re-installs the OS to it's original state from the hidden partition.

Restore the system then run a up to date virus scanner to make sure a virus didn't hide itself on your hidden partition. Make sure you get all the security updates for your system also.

i can't even boot from the cd drive. anyother way to get to the hidden xp to reinstall

Some Dells can access the recovery partition (Win XP) when turning on the machine by hitting Ctrl and F11 keys together at the Dell boot screen.

Try this and see if you get the recovery option.

did you read the topic/tutorial : how to reinstall xp whithout floppy or cd drive on the site ??? you never know , its works for others , so ??