Hello Hanspuppa, if you are still out there, It has taken about 2 weeks but I finally have everything running again. First, your instructions from memory were first rate, I also used the instruction manual but your's were more complete. The reinstall part was a piece of cake. Getting everything else back on took the time. The Dell resource disk did not automatically install the drivers for the internet connectivity. Luckily, I found that Dell gives lifetime phone service for hardware and one of those nice guys in India talked me through the manual installation for those drivers. This was necessary because they are integrated drivers, that's all I know. Then I had to individually reinstall all my extra apps. Then the internet went down and hughes.net, my provider (how I hate them) could not figure out what was wrong with the settings. Their Indian group is not nearly as competent as Dell's.  Finally they got the settings for the internet back but not for email. While I was fooling around trying to figure out what was wrong, The BSOD revisited me. I had to do a new reinstall of the XP. Dell spent another 45 minutes helping me get the connectivity drivers back in. I finally figured out that the email connection setting needed to be changed from "any connection" to LAN, and so now everything seems to be working! Thanks for your help. The nice thing is, now my Programs list is down to 1 1/2 columns from 3. I am glad to have all that junk I didn't need out of the computer.  And I won't be afraid to do another reinstall now that I am an "expert".   Happy holidays.
Dimension 4550 has quit, cannot get past the BSOD. Using the DELL operating system CD I have tried system repair with no success and want to reinstall. At the point where you select the partition, the FAT choice says there is not enough room, and the other choice says "you chose to install windows xp on a partition that contains another operating system."  I don't understand this as the only system on here is the OEM XP Home Edition that came installed on my computer. Appreciate help with this.
XP reinstall problem with partition choice