Erasing harddrive and clean operating system install?

My son has a laptop, that has gotten "infected" with several bugs, viruses, etc. We figured the simpliest solution would be to do a clean install of Windows XP. Do we have to erase the harddrive before we do so, and if so, what procedures shall we take? I do have Norton Ghost, for partitioning the new install, if that is required? This is an older laptop, but it is a PIII. Guess I just need to know what steps to take, and in what order.
thanks,
coadman

 

Hi,

You can see this article but i will give some information too.
Here

You can just format all your drives from you laptop and make sure you have a backup from your files. These files must be clean of virus
You do not need to make any partition disk.
Make sure you have the service pack 2 and the last hotfixes.
Anti Virus is welcome as well
From beginning:

1 - format all your drives after backup your files
2 - Install XP
3 - Service Pack, hot fixes and anti virus
4 - You're ready to go

 

coadman

Formatting is not sufficient to clean the drive; it doesn't overwrite the system areas. It's necessary to do an fdisk and remove the partition, reboot and remake the partition, reboot and format it. Be careful: you will need to reinstall the drivers from the original CDs for your mobo and all your hardware or the laptop will be unuseable. (Instructions for fdisk are towards the bottom of the article referenced by windux)

An alternative I suggest: make sure you have a good firewall installed, or download zonealarm (free from 'Links') and try to clean the disk by doing an online virus scan, download spybot search and destroy and adaware personal edition (all free from 'Links' below) and update the programs online; then run them and let the programs delete all they find.

Then download hijackthis.exe, put it in it's own folder, e.g., c:\hjt\ and run it to save a log (the top option) and post log file here.

 

Reformat Drive

Anytime you want to reinstall with a fresh start of you disk you want to run fdisk, then format the drive, then reinstall XP, you do have other options tho, you can start the installation and when it detects a version already installed it will give you a repair option, try it first, if it doesnt work then start from scratch, just make sure you have a bootable disk with CDRom support and that you can start the install from the CD.

Tony

 

That won't be need here. If you do any partitioning, use fdisk.

Dont hesitate to ask for explanations of the suggestions above if you have questions.

 

Let's not get too far out on this limb folks. FDISK is not needed to install XP since the XP install disk has all the necessary tools to perform the job. The process is quite straight forward and easy. There are several good step by step instructions available. Here is one:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Another good one is here:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/setup.html

Basically what you do is change the BIOS setup so that the CD-ROM drive is first in the boot sequence. Then insert the XP install CD in the drive bay and reboot to it. That's all covered in the link above. The only time FDISK would be of any value would be if you wanted to create a FAT32 partition larger then 32 gigs. FAT32 is not recommended for XP normally and I will assume you want a standard NTFS file system.

Post back if you have any further questions.

 

surferdude2

I haven't seen anywhere that a 'clean install' cleans an infected disk. Will it overwrite the NTFS? That would be necessary.

 

Yes, all data will be lost when doing a clean install using the XP tools, even any viral infectors. The same with any format procedure that is employed with a "Clean" install.

 

surferdude2

However, from the site you referred to: "A common Win98 boot disk such as the Boot Disk Essentials diskette below can be used to install these OS's." I just feel safer using fdisk first. Guess I'm old fashioned.

We still don't know if he has the CDs with drivers.

 

It has been alluded to, but not clearly mentioned that viruses can also infect the Master Boot Record. Hence, the suggestions to remove all partitions, reboot and then repartition are good ones in this case. Simply reformatting or re-installing will not deal with the MBR.

DRD