Hi,

I recently got a very bad virus and ended up having to reformat my HP laptop. I've attempted to do the following

1) Boot from a windows XP cd
2) Delete current partition with Windows on it
3) Continue with windows XP installation

Once compleated the laptop restarts and then goes to something called "HP recovery". I've attempted following the instructions for the recovery and right away quitting the recovery but in both instances I was unable to get into Windows XP as both ended up with an error. More specifically when following through the recovery the error will appear before XP even attempts to load, but if I quit the recovery the error occurs after XP attempts to load (after the XP logo with the blue "loading" bar screen) .

Futhermore, there are two other partitions on the Partition screen besides the windows one I previously deleated.

1) Partition HP recovery
2)Partition NTFS

Are these both alright?

Also, after attempting to install windows and going back to booting from the cd, I will be asked to repair the one just installed which is listed and called Windows(which does not work) but I've notices that in the following screen listing all the partitions, there is not one that is called Windows, only NTSF in the size I made Windows.

Hopefully I've been descriptive enough in describing my problem as I have no idea what may be wrong and as I'm sure you can tell, am not very computer smart haha.

Thank you very much in advanced, much appreciated

It doesn't show

Regarding getting error, do you receive an error message at all?
Also I notice that HP have comprehensive Windows setup guides for individual systems, so may want to check and confirm their steps

By the way, you can also purchase a Recovery disc (CD) through them (as I'm not exactly sure that is what you presently have)
If you do have this, it may be even better to remove all partitions, and just start again

Here's some useful HP info: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic100655.html