how to format windows xp

hi my question is that i am buying a new laptop and i have to give my old laptop to my little brother the qustion is that my old laptop is too slow and have loads of virus i increased the am and in my harddrive its 40 gb. Can anyone tell me how to format a laptop windows xp. I want to format every thing
ecluding the o.s
please help me

 

just boot from the install disc and when you get to the part where you need to choose where to install delete that partition then setup windows.

 

uh can you explain a bit more please I dont have he disk please tell me how to do formatting without the disk

 

you will need a disc or you are out of luck. when you format a hard drive you erase everything and you have to reinstall windows. without the disc you will have a computer with no os and it will be almost useless. your computer should have come with a reinstall disc and some driver cd's. if you can find those then you will need to put the cd in the drive and restart the computer. you will have to press a button to enter the boot menu. its different on alot of computer. it will tell you when you turn it on. you want to boot from the cd drive. windows will load up and it will take a while. when it gets to the screen wheere it want you to choose where to install windows follow the instructions to delete the partitions and reinstall.

 

I think what you want to do is to defrag your hard drive instead of reformat.

Defrag will move all the data in your hard drive to be right next to each other. If you never defrag before you can have a file that is all over the hard drive. This is what is causing the slowdown because the hard drive has to move the read heads back and forth to get the data you need.
Windows has it's own built-in defragmenter, just go to "my computer" right click on the c: drive /properties/tools/defragment.

It's always best to never reformat a laptop, the drivers for them are very hard to find. Some laptops come with a recovery DVD, if you have one. Test it first with nero. Do a disc quality test to make sure it's readable first.