Dell Inspiron 5150 recovery help

Hi, really need your help and that certainly seems to be what you are all good at.

I have a dell inspiron 5150 and my son managed to download some sort of virus or trojan, despite my having Kaspersky. So, handed it in to PC world and they have managed to retreive my data which is the reason I used them rather than just reinstalling xp myself. However, now they want a recovery disc which i wasn't given by dell. Their customer service couldn't help without my serial tag and I couldn't get it to them before their lines closed on Friday. So a few questions:

-I've heard Dell computers shipped after 2004 have the os recovery on the hard drive. Is this true?
-If so, how is it accessed? And how is it used?
-If PC world have already backed up my data and use this method, will it delete the data on the computer?
-If all this is rubbish, how long would it take for Dell to send me a recovery disk and would it cost anything?
-Why can't I just reinstall windows using an xp disc?

Thanks so much in advance for your help!

 

Yes, I think most new notebooks come with a recovery partition (at least all three DELL notebooks I bought after 2006 did), but all three were shipped with windows installation disks too.

They use several different methods, read the following two links :
Inside the Dell PC Restore Partition
Dell PC Full System Recovery and Reinstalls of Windows

Yes. Your computer will be restored to the factory installed state. At least all the data in your system drive will be deleted, if you had more than one partition then the other partitions will not be affected.

I don't know how long it will take, but I think it is free. Call them and ask.

You can use a XP disk to reinstall.

 

Sorry, I've just realised that it is actually a dimension but I don't think that changes anything. I just checked their manual and it seems there is some system recovery on the hard drive itself. I assume then that if pc world have already backed up my data, they can do this and then transfer my old data back onto the hard drive?

Thanks a lot for your help. Certainly been more helpful and knowledgable than the supposed technicians.

 

If they backed up all your data, then they can go ahead and restore the OS using the restore partition. As I said before, this will restore the computer to the state it was originally bought. All the programs that you have installed later (i.e Microsoft Office, Media players, Codecs etc.) will be gone; you’ll have to reinstall everything again. PC Word or whoever is repairing your computer will not do that. They will only put back your data (Documents, Music, etc..).

 

Right ok. I assume they will install drivers as well rather than expect me to do that?