hey, if ur gonna use winblows, download yourself a copy of windows 2000, burn the iso to a disk, and put it in your cdrom drive. make sure to back everything up that u need to save like papers and such. reset your computer, and follow the install instructions to reformatt and install win 2000. if u need to, i can send u a copy of the cd and serial code through the mail. never use xp, its the worst thing ever created. you should also try a dual boot with a linux distro like mandrake or redhat. and if ur gona use linux, buy the damn cds...itll save u a lot of time and hassel, they arent that expensive anyways.