I have a 4 year old Dell Computer that i would lke to wipe completely clean and give it to my 5 year old niece. I believe the computer picked up a viruse about 6 months ago because now when I try to turn it on, it won't boot up. the computer is no longer under warranty and I no longer have the recovery CD's given to me by Dell, so what do I do. If necessary, I can purchase CD's from a computer store to fix this problem. I need step-by-step instructions on how to clean up this computer. I am not very familiar with the in's and out's of a computer so please, when you reply speak very simple to me and be very detailed so that I may follow along easily. Your help is greatly appreciated.....

Do you have data that should be backuped stored in that computer? If you dont have any data that you need, you can do a clean install by reformatting that hard drive. That will be the easiest. Keep me posted.
Edit.
Oh and tell me if it is a desktop or a laptop. And whether you have an Operating System installation disk. Better if you can give me the Dell model number too. Then I can lookup in the dell site for the hardware specifications.

No, I do not have any data in the computer to back up. I want to wipe the hard drive clean. No, I don not have any of the operating system installation disks. No i do not have any of the operating system installation disks.

From your pm I got the following specs for the Dell Dimension 4550
120GB hard drive,
64MB GeForce4 MX 420-based card to a 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 TX
2.67-GHz Pentium 4 processor,
memory from 256MB to 512MB
Are these correct to your knowledge?

Anyway since you are doing a clean install it is not that problematic. You will have to have a operating system installation CD. I think Windows XP will be the best choice. Can you get a WinXP installation CD?

Yes, to my knowledge, those specs are correct. Can I purchase that Windows XP installation Cd at any compuer store? If so, Yes, I can get it

Yeah you will have to buy a Windows XP CD. Also you will have to search for the Driver CD for the hardware too. For the time being you can get the computer running with only the XP CD.