HeDell Inspiron 1545 harddrive erased

I am new and have never even used a forum before so I hope someone can help me. I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop and over the past 48+ hours, I had somehow acquired a virus. I know nothing about the virus (name, damage it did, etc.). Initially, I wasn't able to get online but was able to view it in Safemode. Now, after contacting McAffee (to find out why it wasn't working to stop this virus to begin with) and Dell to see if they could help me (they wanted to charge me $129.99), I am not able to get on my computer at all. McAfee had sent me a link that would scan and clear out any virus. I had to download this and put it on a flash drive then hook that up to my Dell. It seemed to work but didn't even tell me if it found any problems or if it was even completed. Long story short, a friend suggested downloading Vista again and when attemped to do this. It seemed to be going good until almost the end, where it said there was an error

 

Thanks for attempting to help me. I am answering this post but the other post has a little better description of what my problem is. What I had done was put the Vista Reinstallation disk in (that came with my laptop). I'm not sure what you mean by setting the bios to boot to the cd drive or if I did a complete reformat. I put the Vista disc in and it looked as though everything was going along fine but then I got an error message at almost the very end of installing it and now I can't do anything but hit F8, F11, or F12 and view whatever information comes up with those prompts. I can't do anything like go to Safe Mode, Repair, etc.

 

I hit the F12 and I see BIOS Setup, is that what I'm supposed to get into?

 

Okay, I'm there and I see something that says boot squence, is that it?

 

I think I got it...CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive is now at the top...Diskette Drive below that, Internal HDD below that and on the last bottom spot is USB Storage Device. There is an 'Apply' button. Do I hit that instead of F10 to save and exit?

 

I did also put the Internal HDD in the 2nd spot. Do you think I should hit F10 instead of Apply? Sorry about my ignorance and I really do appreciate your help.

 

Okay did it...it said 'Windows is now loading files' and a blue screen came up with language. I do remember doing this yesterday but after it was almost to the end, is where I got my 'error' message. I am going to continue in hopes that it goes through this time. What should I expect after this process is all finished?

 

Oh yea, one more thing before installing. Do I just hit 'Install Now' or 'What to know before installing Windows' or 'Repair your computer' ?

 

I'm sorry again, I just ran into a different question. It's asking me if I want to 'Upgrade' or 'Custom (Advanced) yet a little below that it says that 'Upgrade has been diabled'. Why would it say that and should I just do the Custom option?

 

Okay, I chose that option and now it gives me two choices 'Disk 0 Partition 2 RECOVERY-8.9 GB' and 'Disk 0 Partition 3 OS 218.2 GB'. Which one should I choose?

 

Ok, do I just hit 'next' , 'Refresh' , 'Load Driver' or 'Drive Options (Advanced)'?

 

The partition you selected might contain files from a previous Windows installation. If it does, these files and folders will be moved to a folder named Windows.old. You will be able to access the information in Windows.old, but you will not be able to use your previous version of Windows. It then asks if I want to click on 'Ok' or 'Cancel'

 

Oh yea, that previous message is what came up with I hit next...sorry about that.

 

Thank you...Now after this is done, should everything come back up as normal or is there more cds that I'll have to install? The Dell came with 4 other discs that I'm wondering about, that may need to be installed also. One is a 'Drivers and Utilities', another is 'Dell Application-for reinstalling Cyberlink PowerDVD' another is 'Roxio Creator, which I think is the CD/DVD burner/maker. The last one is 'Microsoft Works' which I never use. Have all of those been erased too or are they still in there. also, a friend told me that once it installs the new version of Windows Vista, it will erase the virus that I had had. Is that true? I had transferred some photos and docs onto a flash drive yesterday while I was in Safe Mode (knowing I may lose everything). Will everything be okay or (I know this is probably a stupid question but...), can those files on that flash drive carry the virus back into my laptop once I transfer them back?

 

Thank you so much for getting me started...it seemed to work. There is definiately more configuring that I need to do, compared to when I first got the laptop. Hopefully I can figure them out. Up until now, I had McAfee since it was already on the Dell but on my other pc I have Norton. My friend's father suggests AVG. What do you think about that one? I am having trouble getting connected to the internet (I have Netgear through our internet provider and the computer is not recognizing it for some reason). Any suggestions? I am going to try and install the Drivers and Utilities (maybe that has something to do with the interet . I will also install that DVD thing too.