may i stress out at first that i seriously have no clue what i'm doing... i got this laptop from a friend a while back, with the problem that he couldn't do anything with his computer. each time he changes something, and rebooted, the hard disk would just go back to a previous state. so i ended up here, thinking it's some sort of zero touch installation. eventually, i took the hard drive out, and gave him another. i put it in my own desktop. my question now is.. how do i format the drive for normal use? i really don't know what options i have, and i don't want too much of those programs and features on my pc. i've been downloading microsoft AIK and ADK and MDT and everything, but have no clue what to do with it

This forum is specifically for SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) 2007, not something someone would likely just own for a personal laptop. I personally think you should find a forum specifically for the Operating System and ask your questions there. Realistically though it sounds like that laptop could have some software on it to specifically keep users from making ANY changes which would also generally be used by a business to ensure that the Operating System stays the same after any reboot. If the laptop is a personal device, please find a forum for that Operating system (XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc) or if the device is a business device please have him refer to their IT department because if it is he is likely doing something that will get him in trouble.