URGENT how to fix this really f*cked up computer? => a try in helping a friend

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ungua

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one guy i share the flat with uses a rather antique compaq presario 5176. somehow he got a virus or whatever-causes-this onto his windows xp system; starting the computer is an endless process, opening windows explorer takes between 8 and 15 minutes, nothing can really be executed! so i told him i could just install suse linux 9.1 since he is not a gamer and all the elementary things can be done in a safe manner with linux, too.
at first i loaded knoppix since i wanted to arrange the partitions after completely emptying the hard disc. with only 80mb ram (strange constellation) kde could not start, but i found qtparted and ran it. strange enough didn't qtparted find any harddisc!! so i tried to run suse installation from cd. that one couldn't find a hard disc (or just space for a swap-file?) either so i plugged in my 256-mb-usb stick to use as a swap-partition. this one - supposedly situated at /dev/sda1 - couldn't be found either. i checked all available options and found the usb-stick, too, but it didn't say how to load it properly as a swap-partition for starting installation. then i tried to start xp in dos-mode, pressing f8 while starting. it turned out it was no real dos-mode, but i tried to deltree all files when i saw that "format c:" didn't work. well, what was in c:\ did disappear so that when i start the pc now, it doesn't find any keyboard. *nice* so running the suse-disc means my only option is to wait, since "error 304 (no keyboard)" is quite severe... :D everything i can do now is starting xp and use the mouse; even though it says "new hardware found - keyboard" when running, i cannot use the keyboard (and so i don't get into the task manager either to try to improve performance).
now i used ½ hour just to get into the c:\windows-folder (i wish i was kidding, but i had a watch ticking right beside me) just to find some hundred .exe-files named with only numbers (like "107.exe", "9988776.exe"). i tried to delete some, but performance became even worse when the pc had to do more than just opening a folder. before the keyboard-desaster i saw that in the task manager a lot of programs are listed that seem to be nothing but crap; apart from the number-things a dozen times "svhost.exe" & similar...
i was close to getting a heart attack and throwing the pc out so i just stopped and wrote a note (he's out).

but how shall i proceed from this place? can someone send me autoexec.bat & config.sys so that at least the keyboard may work again? is there any chance of getting a mirror working on this computer? any operating system would be appreciated, i could build in his harddisc into my computer just to make the transfer... unguaREMOVECAPITALLETTERSmsn@gmail.com...

if i cannot get any help from the precious internet community by maybe tuesday i will take his harddisc and empty it with my pc. if that is a rather bad idea, please tell me before i do so... :rolleyes:

regards & thanks
ungua, who was only good at win98...
 
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