Hello everyone...

I got fed up with Windows and I permanently want to switch to Linux. I just want Linux on my laptop.

My problem is: Recently, my Windows XP laptop got affected with a virus/trojan. At boot up a blue screen (screen of death) pops up for a second and then the boot process starts again from the beginning (Its an unending Loop).

Technical Specs:
Operating System: Windows XP
Laptop model: DELL MINI 9
SSD size: 16GB
Partition 1: System reserved (100MB)
Partition 2: aprroximately 16GB
Antivirus: Avast Free Edition
Backup: I have a backup of important files. No worries of loosing data with a fresh installation.[/B][/B][/B][/FONT]

Troubleshooting attempts I had made: (All were in vain)

Method 1: I wanted to format my system.. so tried installing Windows XP. It did not help. All I see is a message which says the selected partition cannot be formatted. I only have one partition and cannot even re-size it.

Method 2: Fed up with Windows, I just wanted to install LINUX. I used GParted, Knoppix, Partition Magic to remove the windows partition. None were effective. I get a message saying, "Selected partition cannot be deleted".

Method 3: I tried installing Ubuntu and as always installation was unsuccessful. It cannot simply remove the partition.

Method 4: I removed the SSD (Solid State Drive) and connected it to my friend's Brand New Windows 7 DELL Laptop via a mini USB. All I wanted to know is the name of the virus/trojan. AVG/Avast/Norton scans did not show any infections. Microsoft Security Essentials showed some threats and it prompted me to fix them and I did that. It said threats were removed. All was okay until my friend rebooted his computer. Now he has the same problem I have. (Unfortunately, I did not note down the name of the Virus).

Method :5 I even tried the command dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M on Ubuntu.Even this didn't help.

Method 6: My BIOS version does not offer me MBR protection, so the option of turning it on/off for writing to the MBR is not in my hands.

Can someone please suggest me a solution?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Sandeep Kankatala

Can you start the CMOS BIOS settings utility? Maybe there is a setting protecting the internal disk drive from being changed although I've never heard of anything like this. Another possibility is that the disk drive is damaged.

If you cannot check the CMOS BIOS settings then I would start a chat session at support.dell.com to see if they have any ideas. Chat sessions often get better response time than telephone or email. If you don't have any way to do that then I could contact Dell telephone support.

Dell support is much better than it was years ago. I use it often to help my clients who own Dell computers.

i hope you already tried it, but since you didn't specify differently, try substituting '/dev/sda1' for the '/dev/sda' references you gave. 'fdisk sda' to make a partition, which was apparently already there, so you would be 'dd'ing to '/dev/sda1', rather than sda. otoh, try
'fdisk /dev/sda1' then 'p', to see if there is a logical partition (probably xp recovery) contained in it.

Boot ultimate boot cd to run diags. Run memtest and the hard drive diags.

You system has some problem not your OS.