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Dell PC Restore vs. reformat/reinstall?


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#1
muffintoast

muffintoast

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Hello all. New here. I have to say you guys are amazing for what you're doing. This site and all of you are a lifesaver!

Anyway, I have a question I think will be quite easy for someone to answer. Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes.

I've recently been very badly infected with trojans, rootkits, you name it, and have been advised to reformat my hard drive. I have a Dell XPS 400, running Win XP Media Center (if that matters). What I need to know is: will the Dell PC Restore do the trick, or do I have to do a reformat/reinstall using OS & drivers disks? the restore I am referring to is a hidden recovery partition, not the "system restore" function where you can go back to a prior date.

I've been doing tons of research, and the answers on the web seem to be all across the board. Bottom line: does a Dell PC restore "wipe" the drive clean (meaning viruses, rootkits et al) as well as a reformat/reinstall from cds?

I am hoping to get to the bottom of this today so that I can get my wiping done this weekend. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!!
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#2
Neil Jones

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Either way does the job, the restore has everything already done, just run it, it'll wipe the machine and have everything for the bits inside.
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#3
muffintoast

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THANKS!!
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