Apologies if incorrect terminology. Been given a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. Switch on and the previous owners user name pops up with a password request. Previous owner said there isnt a password as everything was deleted (not sure what that meant). I have the Dell operating system disc. Its windows Vista Home Premium.. What do i need to do to get working again. and be able to log in. cheers

Boot from the disc, it should give you an option to factory restore.

If it was mine, I'd replace the hard drive with a cheap SSD from Ebay and install either Linux Mint or Zorin on it. Both are free btw.

This is good advice. Max the RAM out too. Around £50 will get it set up with ssd and max ram. You could even go with Windows 7 or 10 if you don’t like Linux.