How do i restore a computer to factory condition myself?

use f10 & f12 or recovery & reset, first run a anti virus like Microsoft Security Essentials run full scan it then will set in ur system tray when a treat come it will turn brown or red then a pop-up will come up by the clock says clean computer that clear what ever it was & its free for life, then try this You should be able to reboot, press and hold F8 until you get the black screen and then choose recovery option>>Factory restore and allow to run. This will complete in either 30minutes up to an hour and will restore the computer to out-of-box condition. but u have to back up ur stuff like pictures, music & video's & documents & set-ups.exe to set back up if ur system get wiped, windows will still be there::)) put them on cd's & flash drives

Most Dell computers come with two partitions to the hard drive, there's the C drive which contains all your files, and than an additional D drive, which should be the "Restore" or "Recovery". The D drive should contain tools you need to revert your system back to stock, as if you just bought it.

Unless of course at some point you reformatted that partition, or deleted it.. Than you are SOL and will have to Torrent a copy of Windows, and use your CD Key(Should be a little sticker somewhere on your computer to tell you the CD Key, and what OS you have..)

Most computers have for years come with restoral CDs that will take the PC back to day one out of the box. But since you neglected to give make, model, or OS, all I can suggest is that you find these CDs. Some of these PCs have a hidden restoral partition that contains the OS to be reinstalled. But, back to my second sentence, this will be in your owner's manual.

If you still have your recovery disk somewhere despite what you say (I know i don't) you can find an option in Windows that wipes your computer. If you don't, you can custom-create one using a couple dvds.