ever reformatted a hard drive?

*edit* ADT720 beat me to it, follow his instructions and you are good to go.

If you have all the original discs you should have no issues, you will have to suffer through a few windows updates but that is no issue.

As for reformatting just switch the boot drive to the CD and toss in your xp disc and let it do the formatting.

Do you have the original drivers for the laptop? If you have the OEM drivers disc you are good to go, otherwise you will have to find them on the net which is relatively simple although a pain.

Sounds like a simple install to me.

Originally Posted by JJG

I have a laptop on the bar in my living room that's kind of the "house" computer for my roommate and guests to use for web browsing. As a result I have no control over what websites people visit and what sort BS gets downloaded. (It's a sh*tty old Gateway so who cares)

Long story short, I think it may have a virus (or several, or at least a healthy amount of spyware/malware) Google searches get redirected to spam sites, youtube doesn't want to work, etc... Malwarebytes and Housecall don't seem to be able to fix the problem.

I have all the original disks that came with the computer, including the (legit) windows XP disk. My problem is that I've never reformatted a drive/reinstalled windows. just wondering if anybody here can give me simple walk-through of the process or direct me to page that explains things in relatively simple terms. there's nothing to back up either since I don't have any important files on this computer.

What problems am I likely to run into? What is the hardest part? I have watched a friend go through the process before and I have a vague understanding of what it entails. Any help is appreciated.