[SlapnutSkits]

Hi,
For the past few months I've been having tremendous trouble with virus's and spyware etc. Recently it has been getting ridiculous and it comes to the point where I have to boot into safe mode and run an Antivirus scan to be able to use my laptop properly.

I have a new hard drive which I want to put into my laptop, but I have no idea how to do this. I wouldn't be bothered if I lose all the data on my hard drive because I have all my important data backed up. Could somebody please guide me on how to replace the hard drive?

Help would be greatly appreciated,
Cheers.

[Cew27]

there will be an access panel on the bottom of the laptop, unscrew about 6 screws and remove it, the hard drive will probably have a fixing caddy, remove the tiny screws and mount the caddy to the new hard drive then simply reverse the process

[SlapnutSkits]

I've tried this though but when I turn the laptop on nothing happens, just a black screen with a flashing dash icon in the corner.

[Cew27]

i presume you get past the bios and nothing happens, this is probably because nothing is installed on the hard-drive so it has nothing to boot from, when you insert the hard drive you need to put in the windows installation disk and set it to boot from the disk and install it on the new drive

[SlapnutSkits]

Oh, so without a Windows XP disk I can't install the drive?

[Cew27]

you can physically install the drive but you can not install windows on it no

[philthomas]

Have you got Recovery Disk(s) for the Laptop or do you know if there is a hidden partition with the recovery files ?

[SlapnutSkits]

Well I've got the hard drive (with nothing on it), a windows XP disk, and 3 Packard Bell master disks (Which dont seem to work anymore)

[SlapnutSkits]

I should mention that when I fit the hard drive and insert the XP disk it tells me that XP is not installed on the hard drive so the process cannot proceed.