Reformatting C: Drive and starting with a clean HDD

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Guest

I am working on a friends PC. It's a reasonably new Dell Dimension, P4, 2Ghz
256Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD.

Somewhere she's picked up a virus AND is getting loads of pop-ups. Norton
AV is picking up some of them but not all. Plus the PC is running painfully
slow.

In the past (Win 95/ME) I've simply burned any documents/photos onto CD,
gone to the DOS prompt and reformatted the C:drive. This has removed
everything (virus included) and allowed me to reload the programs etc. and
return to normality.

I've tried to do this in XP Home but can't get a DOS prompt. I also
reloaded XP but all programs and the Virus is still there.

Any help would be greatfully appreciated !!
 
How did you "reload" xp,was it thru repair in the xp cd.Youre best bet to
format/reinstall is to boot to xp cd,at info screen select,install xp,new
copy,delete the partition,create one,then xp formats and reinstalls auto.
One other suggestion,256mb of ram is border-line for xp,512 is the recomm-
ended amount or above.Also,to rid of most pop-ups,turn on firewall in xp,
then open internet options,security tab,click on an icon,then set to default,
do this to all that show.
 
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