Uninstall then Reinstall OS WinXP

[Kayla]

I have been hit with a rash of adware on my system. I have
ran the Norton Anti-Virus and downloaded an Adware zapper
program from CNet. I have even tried to keep up to date
with the Windows Update, but I fear the "damage" has been
done. Meaning I do not go on the internet for fear of my
browsing may be tracked or other harm my come to my
system. After running these programs and going in and
deleting the adware manually, they continue to reoccur. So
I have opted to dump the OS WinXP and reload it, in hopes
of getting my laptop to the same condition it was when I
bought it. My question is when I unstall the OS does it
wipe my hard drive clean of everything? I should mention
that WinXP came on the system when I purchased it. Is
there anything special that I need to do when going this
uninstall/reinstall process? Please Help! Thank you

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Hey Kayla,

There are three things you are going to need to do. First, back up all
of your data. Make sure to save everything you want to keep and write it
to a CD or Floppy.

Second, if your computer is an OEM, meaning it is made by Dell, HP, or
some other company, you may need special instructions on how to
reinstall Windows. Moving on to step three should work, but there may
be some utilites/drivers/software that isn't loaded that may need to be.

Finally, if you decide to just go for it, put in your Windows XP CD,
boot off your CD (to do this, you may have to enter your BIOS (aka
Setup) when your computer boots up by pressing the DEL key or maybe F1,
or F2, or whatever the screen says (you may have to press the escape key
to get it to show up too), and once in the BIOS, you will need to change
the boot order so that the CD is first). Once you have booted from your
Windows XP CD, choose to install, then chose to format your harddrive
with NTFS (quick), and follow everything until you have Windows installed.

WARNING: Make sure you have your Windows XP Key before you format. If
you do not know where your key is, use this program to find out what it
is and write it down:
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/downloads/kf141.zip

Good luck to ya and make sure you update everything as soon as you get
it up and running. One last thing, make sure to install Service Pack 2
as soon as it is released which should be within the next couple of
months. This is a huge security update that will really help you

Nathan McNulty

 

[Kayla]

Thanks for the tip. The system is an HP Pavilion. It just
came with the System Recovery CDs. Will the process you
descibed still work the same? I am going for a full
system recovery using these CDs. Thanks again.