SONY VAIO VGC-RB30 fresh XP install?

The PC got a pretty good virus and wouldn't get past the splash screen and so I booted with Ubuntu 9.04Live CD and there was no recovery partition or anything of the type so I portioned the HDD and copy all the important data and booted the XP CD. It reformatted and copied and then came the time for it to reboot it did and then it said


Disk error
Press any key to restart

Looks like the master boot record isn't recognising your XP installation.

Try tried reinstalling again?

Also make sure you have your bios to boot from your hard drive.

Yes I tried 3 different copies of XP and now I'm thinking its a HDD problem.

If you have multiple hard drives make sure the correct one is booting first from the BIOS. If it is, try formatting again and make sure that only the XP partition is set as boot.

What did the XP CD format? Do you still have your old partition on there, or did it just overwrite the partition? Tell us what exactly you formatted and where the XP CD installed Windows.

Anyways, they are right, you should run the setup utility (AKA BIOS) that comes up when the computer first starts, it says like "DEL: Startup Utility" or "Press DEL for BIOS Options", and on most computers you press delete while the computer is first booting. Open that up, and check the boot order so that the right hard drive is selected to boot FIRST before anything else, after all, booting from CD requires you to change the boot order. If anything is set above the Hard Drive in boot order, it can give you the identical error you are getting now.

If you have already done this, just say so.

Otherwise I can recommend that you set the MBR in the Ubuntu Live CD using a guide like this:
http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/01/15/how-to-fix-your-windows-mbr-with-an-ubuntu-livecd/

gparted can really screw up the way your computer boots from a partition because it doesn't restore boot records after you format or anything. Make sure you pinpoint the partition you want, and apply the MBR to it.

Its a single HDD and Sony VAIO to enter bios you have to press F2 repeatedly.Since ther is no press F9 or F12 to boot from a boot device.So the boot order has to be

HDD
DvD
CD

And it doesn't have a partition i transferred all important data to flash drive.

Okay, however now, the entire HD has been reformatted and a NFTS Windows XP partition is on there but is not registering.

Sounds like an issue with the master boot record, if you are really in a pickle, install the GRUB bootloader and then it might fix the issue. Unfortunately I have not done this myself, but installing Ubuntu (as long as XP is installed on the drive too) will cause a new GRUB bootloader to form and from there you can boot windows. Be sure to not reformat the drive, but install Ubuntu alongside the Windows XP partition, this can be fixed later.

Really, it sounds like you made a mistake somewhere, in all my times that I have reformatted a drive, sometimes it would do that because I did something blatantly wrong like improperly moved partitions or install Arch linux the wrong way ._.

Well main reason for me to reformat and to do a fresh install of XP because of a virus which caused it not to boot the HDD.

Alright I solved the problem ^_^
Since the virus effected the HDD from booting I used one of the HDD programs I had laying around and forgot about D-BAN and used Active@ Kill Disk and did a full erase
and now its back to normal.