As of 2010, Dell no longer ships the OS (operating system) CD. Dell provided software on the system you were to use to make the OS back up recovery CD. If you did not do this and the system warranty has expired, you must purchase the CD from a 3rd party vendor.
I have 2 dell PCs at home, both old and out of warranty status. I have service tags for both of them. Due to hardware upgrades, and messed up disk, I need the OS CD that Dell ships for recovery of a crashed system. When i put in the service tag in order to send a request for the OS CDs, i get a message saying "Your system is currently Out of Warranty. Please contact Dell Technical Support for further assistance." I do not have ability to do a DELL restore (from the hard disk) because it is messed up with partitioning/formatting that i attempted. How can i get OS CDs, so that i can restore this machine to factory original condition?
Obtaining hard CD of OS for older systems?