XPS 400 Xp problem

[chozobody]

Over the last few months, I have had a virus problem with my Dell XPS 400. It was due to the fact that I had not re-activated my anti-virus. It got to the point that I had to simply wipe the entire drive, and only save the valuble files to an external HDD. Everything went smoothly with the wipe using the "DBAN" bootble software to wipe the drive and reinstall the copy of windows xp that came with my Dell.

After I installed windows again on my computer, I started it up and began to download drivers for my Nvidia 8800GT graphics card. Everything downloaded as usual, until I tried to install it. When I ran the installer, I received an error message that said that the installer was only ment to be used on windows (note that I am currently using windows Xp Media Center) and that the installer had to be terminated. Now, at first, I thought that this might just be the driver installer itself, until I downloaded the release of an older driver. I recieved the same error message 3 or 4 times.

At this point, I was becoming pretty frustrated, and seeked the internet for guidence. I couldnt not find anything of use within all the webpages I looked at. At this time, I was browsing the Web with Firefox 3.0 since I love the feel of it. I went to youtube to search for anything that could help, and I relised that I needed to reinstall the flash player plugin to see the movies. I headed over to the Macromedia website and downloaded the apprpreate plugin for my browser. When I ran the installer, an error message came accross stating that there was not enough free disk space on the drive to install this plugin. Now...this really got me....My HDD had 141 GIGS free on it. From then on, I have recieved numerious error messages from installers saying something cant be compleated because of either windows or my HDD

Currently I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition
Stock Dell Xps400 Mobo with
Intel Core 2 2.84 Ghz processor
Nvidia 8800GT OC
2 Gigs of Dell stock Ram

Any Help would be greatly apprecieated.

*Update*
I restarted my computer last night, and when it tried to boot up, it wouldnt even boot to the bios screen. It simply showed the flashing cursor in the corner.

 

[KSoD]

Here is the thing. Depending on how badly infected you were, those files you backed up could still be infected. Which then infects your brand new install. Which causes it to turn from bad to worse once you put those on there.

So i would try to install Windows but dont put those files on there just yet. Get all your updates and that. Get a Anti Virus on there like AVG or AVast. Both are free and good to use. Then hook up the external and put your backed up files on the PC.

XP Media Center is just XP Pro with the Media Center plugin. So the drivers should work.

Moved to the Windows area.

 

[chozobody]

Ok, well, I made sure the files i placed on the external were clean, using Norton, Bitdefender, and AVG and they are all good. The real problem that i am incountering is when I try and simply start up my computer. The dell screen comes up(the one showing f12 for boot menu) and promptly flashes to a blank black screen with a cursor in the corner. I cannot get any farther than this, including safe mode. The computer registers the keystrokes but continues to hang up...any help?