Take the 2-minute tour ×  I apologize if this is a duplicate in
advance.  I need to reinstall windows XP since it has become
very slow and I suspected loaded with worms and root kits. I
have uploaded all the files I need to dropbox and am not worried
about reinstalling programs. However I haven't got the original
disk or license key, is it possible to simply 'wipe' the
computer and leave just the OS?  P.S. I know XP is horribly
outdated but I haven't got the means to update to a newer OS or
computer at the moment.  share|improve this question Who is the
vendor and how old is the system? Sometimes the vendor will have
a recovery partition you can boot to in order to wipe the system
to a clean slate. –  jmreicha Mar 28 '13 at 19:13 what sort of
pc? –  AthomSfere Mar 28 '13 at 19:13 It is about 4 years old
and a Dell D630 with XP Home edition –  nontechie Mar 28 '13 at
19:16 Does the PC still have it's "Certificate of Authenticity"
sticker? That's where the install key would be typically located
on an OEM PC lik