BleepingComputer.com: Infected XP?

A friend of mine asked my to look at her laptop because it wasn't working right. Its a basic HP with Windows XP Home Edition. Originally it was part of a laptop exchange program at our university. I apologize in advance for not having any screenshots, or hjt logs. Because of this it may get a bit lengthy. On the plus side, nothing on this computer needs to be salvaged and I plan on just reinstalling windows when this is finished. My post is of sheer curiosity because I have never seen this sort of activity on a computer. To begin, when it tries to connect to a wireless network, it does not try to connect to the default address (192.168.1.1 & 255.255.255.0). Instead it tries to connect to a random IP address. Also when searching for networks it lists an unsecured connection named "any" with higher connectivity than the router two feet away from it. When I opened my personal laptop I could also view the network, when I shut off the infected laptop the connection was gone. I eventually tried to install an antivirus and as expected it failed. At this point I decided to just reinstall windows. I tried to save a few documents and pictures from the infected computer to a disk just to see if it would work and it would not allow any files on to the disc. Finally when I did try to reinstall windows, the computer displayed a message stating that there was no hard disk drive available. I tried a few more times with the same result. Any information as to how i could reinstall xp would be greatly appreciated.

If you're not sure how to reformat and reinstall Windows, please review:

• How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP
  
• Prepping for a Clean Install Windows XP

These links include specific step-by-step instructions with screenshots:

• XP Clean Install Interactive Setup
  
• Reformat and Install of Windows

Vista users can refer to these instructions:

• Windows Vista Clean Install
  
• How to Do a Clean Install and Setup with a Full Version of Vista
  
• How to Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Version of Vista

Windows 7 users can refer to these instructions:

• How to Do a Clean Installation with Windows 7
  
• Windows 7 Clean Install Screens

Don't forget you will have to go to Microsoft Update and apply all Windows security patches after reformatting.

Note: If you're using an IBM, Sony, HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Gateway or Dell machine, you may not have an original CD Disk. By policy Microsoft no longer allows OEM manufactures to include the original Windows XP CD-ROM on computers sold with Windows preinstalled. Instead, most computers manufactured and sold by OEM vendors come with a vendor-specific Recovery Disk or Recovery Partition for performing a clean "factory restore" that will reformat your hard drive, remove all data and restore the computer to the state it was in when you first purchased it. Also be sure to read Technology Advisory Recovery Media. If the recovery partition has become infected, you will need to contact the manufacturer, explain what happened and ask them to send full recovery disks to use instead. If you lost or misplaced your recover disks, again you can contact and advise the manufacturer. In many cases they will send replacements as part of their support.

If you need additional assistance with reformatting, partitioning or reinstalling the OS, you can start a new topic in the Operating Systems Subforums forum.