I need some advice on reformatting my hard drive

Due to a botched video driver update, I may need to completely reformat my
drive and start over from scratch. But I've never done this procedure
before.

1) Can anyone tell me exactly what I need to do to reformat my hard drive?
Do I need to make a bootable floopy disk, or can I boot straight from the
WIN XP CD?

2) This is a Dell 4550 system that I bought in February of this year. It
came with 3 months of McAfee Security Center with VirusScan Online. After
the 3 months, I renewed this service for a full year. After I format my
hard drive, will McAfee VirusScan Online go out to the net and see that I
still have nearly a year's worth of service left? Or do I need to do
something else prior to formatting my drive to ensure that I'll still have
that year's worth of service after the reformatting is done?

My system:

Win XP Home
Pentium IV 2.66 Ghz
1 GB DDR SD RAM
120 GB HD
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro vid card
16 X DVD Drive
40X/10X/40X CD-RW Drive
Soundblaster Live

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! This seems like a huge step, and I
need a little hand-holding.

"Jamie Parker" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Due to a botched video driver update, I may need to completely reformat my
> drive and start over from scratch. But I've never done this procedure
> before.
>
> 1) Can anyone tell me exactly what I need to do to reformat my hard drive?
> Do I need to make a bootable floopy disk, or can I boot straight from the
> WIN XP CD?
>
> 2) This is a Dell 4550 system that I bought in February of this year. It
> came with 3 months of McAfee Security Center with VirusScan Online. After
> the 3 months, I renewed this service for a full year. After I format my
> hard drive, will McAfee VirusScan Online go out to the net and see that I
> still have nearly a year's worth of service left? Or do I need to do
> something else prior to formatting my drive to ensure that I'll still have
> that year's worth of service after the reformatting is done?
>
> My system:
>
> Win XP Home
> Pentium IV 2.66 Ghz
> 1 GB DDR SD RAM
> 120 GB HD
> ATI Radeon 9700 Pro vid card
> 16 X DVD Drive
> 40X/10X/40X CD-RW Drive
> Soundblaster Live
>
> Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! This seems like a huge step, and I
> need a little hand-holding.
>
>

There should be a bit near the back of your system manual which tells you
exactly what to do.
Good luck, I've done it 'millions' of times and its a fairly easy procedure.
Nothing that you can really screw up as long as you follow the instructions.
Im not sure about the AV tho, but you should be able 2 retrieve the account
somehow