I have looked it up and it says that when you want a clean install of Windows XP, you go into the os disk and press repair or install. i went into the os disk and it says that i can install it but when i press it, it says that i cannot install because the disk is an older version than what's on the computer. Can someone explain what i need to do to reformat and reload my computer?

Hey astrofreke

basically what you need to do is to boot from WIN CD.
when asked select a fresh start and delete the current partition.
after doing so recreate the partition and reformat .
then you will be able to install a fresh set of WIN.

Good Luck

Catweazle put a nice guide on the process of a Clean Windows Install @

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread6632.html

For boot from CD enter in your BIOS motherboard (usually key ESC or CANC. Or F2 if you have a notebook)
Then it finds the voice "boot sequence" and it sets up like first device of boot yours cd-rom.

Bye