How to Reboot a Dell Laptop with or without Disc

So, you have decided to reinstall Windows operating system on your Dell laptop, for whatever reasons: your Dell runs slow, or it couldn’t boot due to system failure, or something else. In this guide, I’ll show you how to quickly reset the system and reboot your Dell so you can enjoy an “almost new” computer.

Just an important reminder before you start: proceed only when you’ve backed up all of your data stored on the Dell hard drive. Especially those files saved in your My Documents folder, including your Music, Pictures and Videos folders. It’s best to transfer them to an external drive (both WD and Seagate have some durable products as you can find from their official website). Don’t forget to check the Shared Documents (or Folders), if more than one person share files on different user accounts on your Dell computer.

Okay, now let’s get started:

Note: depending on whether you have a recovery disc (CD, USB, etc) at hand, I’m breaking down the tutorials into two parts: with or without a disc.

Reboot Dell PC with a Disc

• Step 1: Insert the disc into the optical drive. Reboot your Dell PC.
• Step 2: Press “F12” when the Dell logo appears on screen to open the “Boot Options” menu.
• Step 3: Use the directional pad to highlight “CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive”.
• Step 4: Press “Enter” when the message “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD…” appears on the screen to boot the disc.
• Then follow the rest instructions shown on the screen.

This is a video tutorial showing how to boot from CD/DVD on a Dell Inspiron 1525, you may find if helpful.

Reboot Dell PC without a Disc

• Step 1: Turn on your Dell computer. When the Dell splash screen appears during the computer startup process, press and hold F8 key.
• Step 2: In the Dell PC Restore by Symantec window, click Restore. Alternatively, press to highlight Restore, and then press .
• Step 3: When a warning message appears stating that all data will be lost, click Confirm, or press to highlight Confirm and then press . The Progress window will appear. Once the restore process starts, Dell PC Restore by Symantec usually takes about 8 to 10 minutes to finish. When the restore process is complete, the following message will appear: The system recovery process was successful.
• Step 4: Click Finish or press to highlight Finish and then press to restart the Dell PC.

Here’s another useful video you may find useful:

That’s it. Let me know if the above tutorials work for you.