I have a second hand Sony Vaio laptop running Windows XP Professional.Worked fine but now the system is now almost unusable due to a high level of viruses.Cant reinstall as it came pre-programmed so I have no OS disk. Is there any way I can perform a clean boot or is there a way i can repair it?Thanks Treeze281 person needs an answerI do too

treeze28 wrote:I have a second hand Sony Vaio laptop running Windows XP Professional.Worked fine but now the system is now almost unusable due to a high level of viruses.Cant reinstall as it came pre-programmed so I have no OS disk. Is there any way I can perform a clean boot or is there a way i can repair it? Second-hand equals format/install.Virus infected/malware infested - only guaranteed cleanup is format/install. No OS installation media, either you need to obtain one or look for how to restore the system to its factory defaults (sometimes another partition on the drive.) Given it is a laptop and *if* the Windows XP Professional product key sticker is still attached to the laptop - any Windows XP Professional 32-bit OEM installation CD should work - beg/borrow from family/friends/co-workers. A non-OEM Windows XP Professional 32-bit CD could be changed (setupp.ini editing, burn new CD) to allow for OEM product keys too - so you might include friendly tech-savvy people you know.-- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP --How To Ask Questions The Smart Wayhttp://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:27:00 +0000, treeze28 wrote:I have a second hand Sony Vaio laptop running Windows XP Professional.Worked fine but now the system is  now almost unusable due to a high level of viruses.Cant reinstall as it came pre-programmed so I have no OS disk. Is there any way I can perform a clean boot or is there a way i can repair it?If you don't have an OS disk, you need to get one. Doing anything else but reinstalling Windows cleanly is just lookingfor trouble.Here's my standard message on this subject:If I acquired a used computer, no matter who previously owned it, the first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the operating system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been maintained,what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses andspyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody else's mistakes and problems, possibility of kiddy p0rn, etc., and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so either.Ken Blake

IMPORTANT: Talk to Sony to obtain a duplicate of System Restore CD\DVD before proceeding further.Also ask Sony if your laptop has a hidden System Restore Partition, and if yes what are the HD cylinder parameters. Write them down along with Windows Keys because that is very useful information in case you need to recover data in future.Then, either you format the System Partition (i.e. C Drive) or a Low-Level Disk Format with Several Boot and Nuke programs, such as Darik's Boot and Nuke, BCWipePD.CAUTION: System Restore CD\DVD alone will not Restore the computer in the factory-installed state if the Hidden System Restore Partition is corrupted. To prevent that from happening, NEVER, DON'T EVER, use Low-Level Formatting because low-level formatting will overwrite the hidden partition as it uses INT13 protocol which bypasses BIOS parameter settings in order to format hard drive.Once you insert System Restore CD\DVD, follow from format Partition C and begin installtion of XP.