I put in a hard drive in an old computer im building. When i started the computer up and booted it with XP i got a warning that there is a virus on the hard drive.

how do i get rid of the virus so i can do a clean installation.

I don't care if i lost everything on the hard drive

You can select to remove the partition and re-create it, then format it before installing XP. Ask if need further help with that.

You can select to remove the partition and re-create it, then format it

that i don't know how to do, is there a web link that tells how to do this.

can anyone tell me how to delete a "partition" and re-create it. do i need to install windows then delete the partition that way, or can i do it from a boot disk

You can do that during the installation of windows , see here for step by step instructions:
(if you have more then one partition then delete those aswell (unless you have data on there that you want/have to keep ofcourse!), they only show it for one)

http://www.windowsxphome.windowsrein...exfullpage.htm