Wiping HD tips

Okay I'm gonna wipe my HD this weekend and install a fresh copy of WinXp onto it. Now I need to ask a few questions.
1: what should I do beforehand considdering my HD is rather full and theres quite a bit of mal/spy/ad/etcware possibly a few trojans and the like.
2: how exactly do i go about wiping my HD? I googled it and was ran around alot i just need some straight forward answers :/.
3: To make my mind be at ease as long as I wipe the computer NONE of the files from the first format will be there right? no viruses etc etc.

i don't understand. have you your data backed up? do you have a partition? For your new OS I recommend a whatever-gig partition for your programs, games, and OS, and then the rest to your files. This will allow you to just copy the app data folder and reinstall whenever you like.

2 you wipe it by getting your install disk and booting from it.
3 only rootkits can remain after a format, but you dont have those.

Im going to be backing up the things I want still (a few games my 20+gig music collection my image folder maybe A fresh install of Firefox avg adaware etc to keep this one clean)
What do you mean why would i partition my drive? ive never partitioned the one thats currently working is there an advantage to this?

Well, it can be easier--what it means is you could make say partition A and partition B.  Partition A could have the actual Windows OS on it, and partition B could have your documents.  Then when you want to wipe your Hard Drive clean and reinstall Windows, you only format partition A.  Then you will end up with a fresh, clean install of Windows, and all your files and etc. will still be there in partition B.

It isn't neccesary though, I never did it either.  I just burn my stuff and reformat the entire drive.  To do this, boot from your Windows install disc.  It will take you through the menus and etc. to format your HD in simple, easy-to-understand instructions.  You should be good once it starts up.  Good luck.

Of course, the advantage of having all your files on a second partition is that if Windows shits itself and stops booting and you can't get to back up your stuff before formatting, you don't need to worry about moving the drive to another computer or booting a live CD to get your otherwise inaccessible files back.

The installation CD will format it for you.  No files.

>>2
O WOW, rootkits after a reformat?