Help Wanted

The time has come. This is technology's bitter payback for me not paying attention in my computer science classes. Something is wrong with my computer and I don't know what or how to fix it. Let me try to explain the problem.

I moved into my new apartment, hooked up my computer to the internet, was bogged down by an obscene amount of casino pop-ups and promptly shut-down my computer. When I booted it back up my administrative account would not load. All that appeared on my desktop was my wallpaper- and that's it. I turn it off and on a few times to no avail. However, I could log onto the Guest account so I figured it can't be too bad. I decide that what I need to do is just totally wipe my harddrive. So, I get a discounted copy of XP from the campus computer store and try to install it. Here's where the real trouble starts.

I was told that if I just insert the XP installation CD and begin to load it, it will give me the option to wipe my harddrive. However, it never got to that point. It went through the entire installation and when it began to load Windows I got a "file corrupted" error. So at this point, as far as I can tell...my computer is in some kind of limbo. My old XP won't work, but my new XP won't load. shit.

I don't know what to do. The advice I am getting from my friends is that I got a virus that has possibly corrupted my harddrive. My only option is to get a new one, which is frustrating because I got a new harddrive only a year and a half ago. But I don't even know if this is sound advice because I don't know jack crap about this kinda stuff. I can't afford a new computer. My budget is about $200-$300 to fix this problem.

Can anyone help???