Advice on re-installing a WinXP system...

[realityhack]

Hi all,

A mate (or his family) has managed to entirely bork his Windows XP system at home and is asking for advice. Nothing precious on there (he's backed up the important stuff), but the machine is riddled with viruses, malware etc.

He's already attempted to install over the existing system with the setup disc but the problem still remains. Any easy (foolproof) steps or a resource I could point him to to totally format the drive and perform a clean re-install of XP?

Any typical issues he'll encounter here? I'm still searching for some good step-by-step tutorials out there.

Much appreciated.

RH

[ctdctd]

Boot from the XP setup disc and instead of repairing the existing installation, re-format and install.
Then get on the web and install drivers from manufacturers web site. (May be wise to download network card drivers to CD before re-install as they may not be supported by XP setup CD.)
Then use windows update.
Then install and update anti-virus.
Then re-install applications

[DaveB]

Flatten it and reinstall from scratch.

If at all possible download AV software, drivers and the latest version of Firefox ahead of time and burn to CD.

Install everything offline and make sure Windows Firewall and AV is running *before* connecting to the net.

As soon as you are connected run Windows Updater and download and install all the available updates.

Do not start any kind of browser or other net based application untill everything else is done.

If you need to surf before IE is updated use the copy of Firefox as it will be more secure than an unpatch IE.

[Incognito]

http://www.dban.org/

Simple iso, download and nuke.