To format or not to format? Can I still save my laptop?

I have a Compaq laptop that runs Win 2000 Professional. I haven't used in a while because it was infected with trojans and spyware.

I'm going back to school and need a laptop badly. If I reformat it and install Win XP, would that get rid of all the trojans and spyware? Or should I just get a new laptop?

I have antispyware/virus/trojan software I use on my home computer that I could use on the laptop. It just doesn't help now now because I can't even get the laptop online to run the updates.

Thanks for your help!

To format or not to format? Can I still save my laptop?virus scanner

If you REALLY want to make sure that you're rid of all of the possible problems of your old HDD, you should get an image file for a live CD for Linux System Rescue or Gnu Partition Editor. Set your computer to boot from the CD drive first by going into your BIOS setup screen and changing the boot order. Reboot with the CD in the drive and it should go into a screen for whichever disc you decided to use. If you use the Linux System Rescue CD (available at sysresccd.com), there will be a boot screen which tells you to press Enter to boot. Do so. Another screen should come up after a minute that will ask you to choose a keymap. At this screen, just press enter again to load the default US Standard keymap. After this it will load up a desktop with an open terminal. In this terminal, type "gparted" without the quotes, and the partitioning software will come up. In the software you can move partitions, resize them, reformat your drive, completely wipe your drive, etc. Reformat your drive to NTFS. After this is done type "shutdown now -r" in the terminal without the quotes, and make sure to take the CD out of the drive, or else it will just boot from the disc again. You should get a black screen on your laptop with the words "Operating system not found" in the upper left. Insert your Windows XP disc, restart your system, and run a normal install. That should do it.

To format or not to format? Can I still save my laptop?anti virus software

format and you have a clean installation and a clean xp system
It would delete everything. But if you e-mail me I'll help you with it. Most people call lost dll's, misplaced files and such viruses and Trojans..
As long as you reformat the hdd and do a fresh install of the os you are good.. don't reinstall xp over your current version of 2000 or your problems will still be there.