Hi there,
Specs: Athlon 2400+, 256DDR, mobo MSI KT4AV, WDC 60gb hard drive

I was recently infected by a program that put an icon called sexdial on my desktop. This seemed to cause an advert for a casino to pop up every 20 minutes or so (and still tried, but failed, even when I wasn't connected to the net). I tried to download Ad Aware but was refused access to the page and any similar pages. I downloaded Ad Aware (and others) on a friend's computer and installed them on mine but this did not rid my computer of the virus.

I eventually resigned myself to formatting my hard drive. However, when I right clicked on the C drive and chose format it would not let me do so because it said something was running in the background (even though there didn't appear to be). I then put the XP boot disk in and went to erase the partition (the only one) but it would not let me do so.

I then decided to repair the installation. It took me through the process of doing this but never completed. I would get to very near the end of the process ('saving settings 9 minutes to go') when it would simply go no further. After many attempts at this I was given two main messages. The first one said 'virtual memory too low' and something about XP trying to create more. The second one said 'The file asms on Windows XP Professional is needed'. The CD is a bootleg copy but has worked successfully on my computer as well as other people's.

The trouble I now have is that when I start my computer it doesn't even try to resume the setup procedure, as it did a few times, and instead just goes in a loop of trying to boot up, realising it can't, and restarting again. I am able to pause the computer to get to the BIOS but can see nothing in there to help me.

Please can someone tell me if there is a way to format my hard drive?

Thanks in advance for your time.

1. Obtain a legitimate copy of Windows XP
2. Set your BIOS boot order to 'CD-ROM - 1st Boot Device'
3. Pop the Windows CD in the drive and Reboot. Press a key to Boot from CD when prompted
4. Install

go here and get a win98 bootdisk, http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

copy it to a formated floppy, boot computer to the new bootdisk and at the dos prompt type FDISK ,choose delete partition ,If you XP install is NTFS ,then choose delete non dos partition ,delet it ,then choose create DOS partition ,then reboot and choose boot with cdrom support ,at the dos prompt ,with the XP cd in the drive type SETUP ,and install winxp

Um, yes. From our Posting Rules:

"Keep it legal
Keep it clean and do not post pornographic material or link to it. In addition, do not post anything warez relaetd or related to other illegal acts. This includes tech support troubleshooting pirated software or P2P programs (i.e. Gnutella, Kazaa) used to obtain pirated software."

Well I agree ,you allready told him to do that no need me repeating it !

Careful there cj- any more attentiveness to this site and we'll make you a moderator as well... :mrgreen:

hello
first of all i have never been able to format a hard drive on a computer you have to remove it and then put it in another pc and you can format it, because i dont think that you can format it while the hard drive is working and secondly if you want to reinstall xp get the xp cd and go to microsoft.com and look for the six boot up diskettes program that will let you delete partitions and create as many as you want after this you can always start before connecting to the net is to put windows xp firewall and then run an av system

What you're referring to is Windows refusal to allow the system drive to be formatted while Windows is running.

You don't need any diskettes - Windows XP CD will remove existing partitions, create fresh new ones, and format the drive for you all from the install routine on CD!