first off i would like to say I'm not that good with computers so any help will be appreciated
i have an aspire one with xp.
I have downloaded a LOT of movies and got a bit careless and have ended up with some viruses and the computer is goosed.
i found Download Darik's Boot and Nuke 2007042900 Beta - Darik's Boot and Nuke ( - Softpedia
i was thinking of putting it on a usb drive and then putting it in my laptop.

that will work right?

so once the hard drive has been wiped clean then what? can i download a fre operating system like linux on my desktop and put it on a usb drive then put it on my laptop?

thanks

Hello Devon

Welcome to PC Help Forum.

In a word, yes you can providing the the laptop can boot from USB.

If it can't then burn linux of whatever flavour it is to cdrom and run from there.

i would do that but my netbook doesnt have a cd drive
the only thing i would be worried about now is that the software for usb drives would be gone if i nuke the hard drive right?
what if i plug in a external cd drive? or would that not work if the usb software is gone?

If you "nuke" the drive so to speak then you are left with a hdd devoid of any data obviously.

An external cdrom would be viewed as "booting from USB", whether it's an external cdrom or USB stick.

What happens then when you load a new OS is that it will load generic drivers to the hard drive and continue from there.

Burn the DBAN .iso to a cdrom as a image file, this will then give you a bootable disk.

There is no need to mess around with USB drives that may or not work...

sorrry I dont know what you mean, DBAN? .iso?
i cant use a disk unles it is from an external hard drive

Wolfeymole will it work from a usb drive or will that software to use the usb ports be gone?

DBAN is short for Darik's Boot And Nuke.

The .iso is what you will be downloading from the website, either for the USB or a CD version...