Wiping hard drive

[Julie]

I have been having a lot of problems...screen goes black
at various times; IBM logo blinks on and off at bootup;
had the Blaster Worm32 and removed it with Symantec
software; had the RPC virus for the second time and
patched and removed it. Get a light blue screen during
bootup which says things like: Checking file system on C:
Type is FAT 32; one of your disks needs to be checked for
consistency; Serial# is 2920-l5eB; verifying files and
folders;The size of \Doc and Settings\Julie Johns anT
user.date.log entry is not valid; size of win\winserv.log
entry is not valid and on and on. I use an IBM Thinkpad
and Earthlink. I decided to reinstall all my software and
tried to wipe the hard drive, but when I reinstalled
Earthlink I got the info that there were some old files
still present on Drive C: Any suggestions? Thanks so much,
Julie

 

[Kevin]

Did you reformat the hard drive before installing Windows? If you do, you
will then "wipe" all the data from the drive and Earthlink should not "see"
any files, old or otherwise. If you reformat and reinstall Windows make
sure you activate the Windows Internet Connection Firewall, assuming you are
using XP, or install a firewall of some kind, plus your anti-virus
application, before you connect to your ISP. Then install your internet
software, although you do not need the Earthlink software to connect and
surf but that is a different issue, and run Windows Update to get all the
critical updates from Microsoft.

 

[Julie]

Thanks so much, Kevin....uh, how do I reformat the hard
drive? Thanks in advance, Julie

 

[Norm]

Change your bios to boot from the XP cd, you will be able to format and
install from there.