I have an XPS M1330 which I wanted to do a clean reboot as I need it as a reliable spare while Dell fix the ongoing issue with my Vostro. Being mildly obsessive, I still have all the old CDs and disks from the XPS so dug them out. I also checked on Dell site how to reinstall MediaDirect because I remembered it was a bit strange. That page is here http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/04/KCS/KcsArticles/ArticleView?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&docid=DSN_321541 so I did that (selecting Option 1). I am now stuck at step 8,9, 10, 11,12 because the CD drive is now not a DVD drive. (It was when the OS was there because that has the DVD drivers. But now, having nuked the HDD with the partitioning done by MediaDirect, it is now only a CD drive not a DVD drive.)
I have confirmed this because the XPS WILL boot from a couple of bootable CDs I have and it WON'T boot from the reinstallation OS DVD. Since I have neither a universal "Undo" button nor a TARDIS, can anyone suggest a way I can get the OS onto my XPS?