Help with windows XP reinstall

[blabay]

My parents' computer is overrun with spyware and we've tried several different programs to try and get rid of it. We're having no luck and have decided that we should just wipe the drive and reinstall. I've done this a couple times with my Win98 computer, but I've never done it with XP. Is there a good tutorial online that you could point me to. They have Dell PC, so I'm assuming they have a reinstall CD.

[turd]

Do you have an XP CD and just want to reformat that drive and start over?

[Vio1]

If you dont know what you are doing, and you have a dell computer, you could always call up dell support and have them walk you through it... that would be the easiest way for you to learn.
Installing windows is rather easy. You first must make sure that you set the cd-rom/dvd drive as the primary boot device (so that the computer first looks at the cd/dvd drive when the computer restarts. When you save that and restart, windows setup will come up and pretty much do everything by itself. It asks you some basic questions, which are rather user friendly.
Good luck

[tenchi86]

XP install is very simple. No fdisk no command promt. Just insert cd if bios are correct and just hit what it tells you. Also run eraser's boot and nuke before you reinstall. It deletes more thuroly then windows.

[blabay]

Would I need to reformat the hard drive to get rid of the spyware, or would just reinstalling windows get rid of it?
What is "erasers boot and nuke" and where do I get it?
Thanks for the help

[nikhsub1]

Would I need to reformat the hard drive to get rid of the spyware, or would just reinstalling windows get rid of it?
What is "erasers boot and nuke" and where do I get it?
Thanks for the help
I would do a full format/reinstall... doing a repair install will leave certain stuff behind which you dont want. I would advise to choose the NTFS format and NOT the NTFS format (quick) option.

[Prot]

It will give you the option to do repair install. Choose NO. It will then give you some formatting options. It's a piece of cake, mostly just answering a few questions.

[russ_da_bus]

Boot off the Dell recovery CD and follow the instructions - it will format the disk as part of the system recovery process. Otherwise you can boot off the windows XP cd but dont choose REPAIR. Instead delete the existing windows installation partition and create a new one. Then install windows in the new partition. Once you reached the GUI part of the setup just follow the instructions. Obviously you will need to reinstall all the device drivers once windows xp has been reinstalled.