I have been working on this machine and can't figure out why it is doing what it is. I believe a virus got the computer and turned all files to readable files. It won't let me download anything or load any programs. I tried changing files from read only, but comes up with the blue Screen of death. I go into Safe mode, but it doens't really allow me to do anything there either. I want to format the hard drive and reinstall operating system however it is not allowing me too. I went into the Bios and have the computer boot to CD-Rom XP CD but it just says hit F1 to Retry or F2 to setup. It is not recognizing the for boot so I went to microsoft and downloaded a Windows XP Boot Disk still doesn't work. I know the CDrom drive is good because I hooked it up to another computer and it works fine. Any ideas on what I can do to get this computer to let me clean install windows xp professional again?? Thanks in advance,

Use a win 98SE Startup floppy disk. Boot from floppy disk. Fdisk and format. then boot from XP CD and fdisk again and reformat. www.bootdisk.com

The above is a lot of work but it will asures you of a clean slate. I guess that's the best way to go in your case. i_XpUser