After cleaning up a 9 year old Dell Dimension 8100 running XP sp3, I defragmented and then closed thinking all was well. When I opened today all the printing is in symbols rather than letters. Can't read any menus or buttons, so I don't know what to do. Tried safe mode and the same problem. No system restore point available. Since I can't read anything, I can't back up. Can I just do a clean reinstall. Only disk I have is a reinstallation CD of XP SP2 from dell. Computer was originally ME, but I upgraded to XP in 2005. Anyone help!?

I wound up completely reinstalling Windows and losing everything on the computer. That was OK,. But now I have to figure out how to get my internet connection (DSL) back working.

Good job...

If you have a router and you have your network card drivers installed it shouldn't be a problem, plug in network cable and off you go...

If when you go into device manager you have yellow (!) against network adapter then you will need to download drivers for the card. If you are looking for dimension drivers (8100) go here http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&ServiceTag=&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_8100&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=

best wishes

Leo

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