“I don't have an XP Home disk as Dell just sent me a disk to use to reformat the computer.”

That is most likely what is called a “Recovery Disk”.

A Recovery Disk is a mirror image of your OS (XP Home in your case) and everything else that was on your computer the day you bought it (including default factory settings and drivers).

I STRONGLY recommend that before you spend money on expensive replacement parts (as suggested over the phone), or have your laptop pulled apart, by someone who may or may not know what they are doing, you put that disk in and reboot.

If a virus or Trojan and not faulty hardware are causing your problems (a good possibility), reinstalling back to factory state should have you back up and running.

If the recovery disk doesn’t get your laptop working then that will indicate you do have a hardware problem (a not so good possibility).

Note: Using the Recovery Disk will return your laptop to the state it was in when you took it out of the box, but YOU WILL LOSE ALL FILES AND PROGRAMS YOU HAVE SINCE INSTALLED!

 

Chuck