How to reinstall XP without a disk

I am not exactly sure if this is where I need to be starting, since I am new to the forum. TIt is an installation issue, but stems from a virus (virut) issue..To try and make a long story short, my son's computer is infected with the win32 virut.ca. From what I have read there is no way to remove this virus completely and a fresh installation is the only answer. The problem is, when we purchased this computer from HP there was no installation disk included. I have also read that that it is stored within the computer through a i386 file? Please someone help me. If I should have posted this in another forum I am sorry, I tried to get it in the right one.

will someone please help me?

if you are under warranty you can get recovery disks from HP by calling them.


My two cents, please take no offense, but..

Responses on this forum take longer than an hour because of the volume of people asking for help is larger than those giving it. If you just leave it alone it will appear as having no one respond and is more likely to get responses. If you reply to your own thread it says 1 reply and looks like someone is helping you and people are less likely to click and take a look and help.

no offense, i am just frustrated, and i appologize. no warranty. the computer is about 4+ years old. is there anything i can do?

Double click on winnt32.exe in the 1386 folder and follow the prompts. That should start the windows xp install

Edited by thrillhouse, 08 June 2010 - 10:37 PM.

I did, then I got an error...It said, no valid system partitians were found. Set up is unable to continue when running winnt32.exe. What does that mean?

Edited by hcarson, 08 June 2010 - 10:44 PM.

Im assuming you don't have a recovery partition on the laptop. Most HP laptops do-pressing F11 at the BIOS screen should bring it up. If you dont have a recovery partition, you can still purchase the recovery discs for like $20 from HP you would just have to call/and or email them. I recomend emailing them, online customer service is free, phone service costs money.

this is a desktop. would it work on a desktop if i pressed f11? if it works, what do i do once i press f11?

follow the prompts just like with windows install.

ok i will try it. my question is, do you think it will remove the virut.ce if i do this though or will it just manifest itself again? i am able to still go online with the computer, so i am hoping that there is still hope. with that said, all of a sudden today hp photosmart kept trying to install itself without prompt in the computer. this is a program that was already installed. when i tried to uninstall it, in add/remove, the computer won't let me i get an error, and i cannot remember what that is right now.

You can check to see if the system has a recovery partition.

Two ways to check.

Click on My Computer from your desk top. Under Hard Disk Drives, do you see D drive listed? If you do, it should have an indication that this is the recovery partition.

The other method is click on Start Menu/All Programs.

Look for HP Tools and within that HP Recovery System.

It may be listed as Hewlett-Packard , hp pavilion pc tools , and hp pc system recovery .
OR PC Help & Tools , and then HP PC System Recovery .

Before you do anything, read this Performing an HP System Recovery in Windows XP

It just gives you the various ways to use Recovery.

Your question about Virut...which really seems to be the issue, IMO...can best be answered by the BC Malware Team.

I am moving this thread from XP to Am I Infected.

Louis