i have a dell dimensions laptop,and had a virus i could not get rid of,so i reloaded windows xp home. it seemed like it was loading into the computer,then at the point of installing files the screen went blank and the cursor arrow was the only thing on the screen. the computer stayed like this overnight and never rebooted. any answers or advice on this problem.

Hello powerlifter, What exactly do you mean by "reloaded windows xp home"? Do you mean you restored the laptop to its exact state when purchased, by going through the hidden dell partition? If that's what you did, and it didn't work properly, than there is a pretty serious problem. The hidden partition that dell has put on your laptop for recovery might have gotten corrupted somehow. Also, what state is your laptop in right now? Does it boot up to windows at all? What you need to do is try restoring the laptop to it's factory condition again. If the process fails again, scan for any errors on your hard disk by using spinrite or any related tools. It's always nice to have some feed back after things are fixed =)