problems with XP SP2 and SP3

[Nikolaus]

Well, I've been working as an IT Technician for years now. I think I'm installing about 10 CPUs per day, every day, and 90% of them arrive in a sorry state of being.
I'll tell you my "M-O" (that's Modus Operandi).

1.-Plug the sucker in, F8 trough boot sequence and get it to boot in safe mode. Everest in full system scan, Report, and save the report. This saves you from a lot of questions during the install (wait, what was my SN, my IP and so on)
Kill the thing. Unplug every wire.

2.-Static bracelet on. I can't stress you enough on how important this is. I once fried a 30K $ Avid editing station with just a tiny Zap. (I'm a freakin' superhero. One zap kills all)

3.-Time for Bios Reset. Rip out all its devices, leave the MOBO clean, rip out the battery. If it's got a bios reset jumper, use it, if not, it will reset itself. While you're at it, vacuum it clean. Use a soft brush to get all the dust out. (And dead bugs. And cigarette cinders. And bug eggs. And staples. And check for dead mice. Seriously, I once found one.)

4.-"Operation Reconstruction". Put everything back in. While you're at it wipe clean the processor and the heatsink and replace the old thermal grease. Helps alot, especially if your country tends to get deadly hot during the summer. (You will most likely dehidrate to death, but your computer will survive. Curse this place.)

5.-"It's alive, it's ALIVE!". Plug the sucker back in and fire it up. "Del" your way to bios, (or F2, Alt-F2, depending on your system). If you know what you're doing, tune it. If not, just load Optimized Defaults and should be ok. Check the boot order sequence. Should be CDROM, HDD-0. The next 1 or 2 devices don't really matter. You could set them to disabled. Save and reboot (F10 usually). Pray for it to start again.

6.-Before booting Windoze I generally use a Boot CD with utils to delete partitions, rebuild the MBR, make new partitions and format one of them. Just one.
You can skip that and boot Windoze. My advice is to backup all your junk on DVDs and format/erase/del partitions at least once per year. Especially if you know you are visiting...erm..."that" kind of sites.
Ok, so del partitions, I was saying, make partitions, format ONE. Not all.
20 Gig for C: is more than enough. The rest should be around 40 to 60 Gig, but not bigger.

7.-"you are doomed". Install Windoze. Boot the first time without network cable. Screw around with settings, adjust them the way you like it. Disable restore points and drive backup, since it's useless anyway. NOW you can format the rest of your drives. This way, you won't get a restore point on your other partitions.
Restore points are evil in its most pure and refined form. Viruses like to breed in there and snuggle close to eachother, while neither you, nor your antivirus can touch them.
Driver time. MOBO first, DX, Video, Sound, other devices. At this time I use Drive Image to make an image of it, burn it to DVD. If anything weird happens (and in 25% of the cases, it does) I won't have to go trough install again.

8.-"Hammer time!" Plug your network. SP and updates. SP2 if it wasn't included and then SP3. Optional updates if you must. Stay away from dotnet frameworks if you don't need them. Most of the time they work the right way, but when they don't, by the gods, you will feel it. If you have ATI, you will need them for the Catalyst.
Get the latest windows media player, and remember to turn off reporting, codec fetching and so on. Or else, the little bugger will tell Big Daddy Bill everytime you are watching naughty stuff, and if the "/fetch_those_damn_codecs" is enabled, it will ocasionally fetch spyware when you fire up some shady wmv.
So go BSPlayer if you can. VLC is even better.
Don't bother with IE updates, since if you have some shreds of humanity left in you, you will go with either Mozilla, or Opera.

9.-"Time to get dirty". Indeed, it's time to add all your personal stuff that will mess up the computer beyond all hope. Appz, Progz, Gamz and all that jazz. In the name of all that is good and holy, at least install and update some antivirus. After hours of painful install, time for the last step.

10.-"Jesus Saves". Use Image Drive to save your computer to this semi-working state. I tested many back-up programs but Drive Image suits my needs best.