Possible dead laptop brought back to life?

I recently obtained a Sony Vaio laptop. It's at least a few years old, but might still be salvageable. I don't need anything on it - I can completely wipe clean whatever information is currently loaded. I tried booting but it takes like 30 minutes and I keep getting messages that data in each of the folders may be damaged. It doesn't seem to finish loading once that has completed.

Is there a way to boot this into some sort of safe mode and totally re-partition (is that the right term?) the laptop to try and star fresh with a clean install of Windows XP?

Download the KillDisk ISO and burn it to CD and it will completely erase your hard drive so it is nice and fresh for a new install.


http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

Once it wipes everything I'll need the Windows XP disk to restart fresh with the new operating system, correct?

correct

Can't I simply reboot w/ the XP disc? Doesn't that give me the option to re-partition and re-install XP and accomplish the same thing?

Yea you could just boot up from the Windows XP disc, and then choose to delete the existing partitions and create new ones using the XP installation utility.

Cool - I will probably just do that. So this will eliminate all of the pre-installed Sony crap that was on there, right? And it will just give me standard XP related (MSN) stuff?

You could but it isn't as fun.

Not only that you'll need the original Sony also. If you didn't get a drivers disk with the laptop you can get them from the sony site for your specific model.

However, before you go to the trouble of re-install, run chkdsk first. Follow the instructions here
http://www.schrockinnovations.com/chkdsk.php

typically it will fix your problems without a reformat.

OK - I tried re-installing by booting to the XP disc - no dice. When I try to delete the partition it tells me I am not able to delete - no explanation. I then tried that Kill Disk program - same thing - I get an error when trying to erase what is on there now. Is God trying to tell me something?

did you try chkdsk?

Nope. How do I do that?

What exactly is the message when you say that it says you can't delete the partition?

You should see a bunch of logical drives (C: D: etc.) when you choose to re-install Windows XP from the disc.

All you do is select those logical drives and choose Delete by pressing either 'D' or 'L', which then brings you to a confirmation that says 'if you are sure you want to delete this partition press ENTER or something. I can't remember the exact letters off the top of my head.

Follow the link I posted above
http://www.schrockinnovations.com/chkdsk.php