Give me your old computer, or give it to someone you trust , i wouldnt risk giving a hard drive to the trash without a hammer.

I have been using Avast on Vista laptop here as it seems to be the most popular right now... but that could change fast with a new version.

Unless you live in a multifamily building its seriously doubtful anyone will want to steal your wifi connection and the connections with your bank and such will be highly encrypted,, no one will be cracking into that quickly in the short amount of time you're going to be using it. Follow proper security recomendations and you'll be fine.

New solo browser window for your banking or other secure financials... highly recommended if you have wifi or cable network of any kind ;) And close it and clear cache when youre done,,, unless youre positive all youre sharing is blocked.

Public hotspots ,,, Vista has a special public place security feature you can use... great for single stand alone non networked computers in the home too.

Wifi is cool and 'nearly' totally secure - it would be unusual for someone to gain access to yours unless you have a crook for a neighbor or a stupid kid.

,, im fixing to unsecure mine now for a few days... if I see someone using it ,, I'll block them if its not one of my freindly neighbors accidentally connected. Not a big deal to me if I know the user.

But easily secured so youre the only one that has access without some hacking. Hacking into wifi is a serious crime in most communities.

my two pennies anyways.... if you dont have wifi now call your isp before running out and buying something,, they maybe will sell you something cheap,, or give it to you and then support it too if you need help setting it up.

The old computer. Once you have transfered the data from it to the new one you could consider using F10 (I think with Compaq) and restore the computer to the condition it was when you first got it. You might be amazed at the speed and want to keep it as a second computer. Or, if you prefer to give it away use Killdisk, free and linked below to wipe only the C:\ drive. Then you can do a restore from the D:/ partition with no fear of any data being recoverd. A senior centre might jump at the chance for older folks, or use Freecycle to give it away, Craigslist to sell.

Regarding the new one try Avast or Avira for anti virus. Do not get disillusioned over Vista get used to it and you will find it is no problem. It comes with Windows Defender for anti malware and is totally automatic, nice freebie

Here is a link that might be useful: Killdisk

Thanks for responding so quickly. I do live in an apartment complex, so in light of that fact, would it raise any security issues if I chose to go wireless?

What is a solo browser?

Owbist.... I couldn't do the system restore with F10. It woudn't let me. It said there was an error that prevented system revcovery! And now, when I turn the old computer on, it just has a screen with a bunch of text codes, something to do with drivers and I can't enter or click on anything. It's a mess!

I've never been a fan of laptops before, but this one is a big one with a full number key pad and a spacious keyboard so I think we'll get along just fine. I can always hook up an auxiliary keyboard if necessary.

Thanks again!

one thing people don't think of when they give away a pc is you are also giving away your copy of xp and right now they are getting harder to get so you might want to hang on to it in case you should want to use that copy of xp again, you would have to get it approved and tell them the old pc is not going to be used it is dead, they generally will allow you to transfer your one copy to another pc in that case.
There are people out there now just looking for computers like that so they can grab up those xp copies. Now if you are just going to put a new hard drive in the old pc you can do that no problem.

For your wireless your router should come with directions on how to set up the secure network if not there are plenty of websites you can google to find out how to set up WPA, be very sure you do go into your router and change the default user name and password to a strong password (not a real word) you can tape it to the bottom of your router.
Securing a Wireless Connection
this is a good guide for what you should consider doing.

For your old pc if you have your original recovery discs you could use those to just wipe the drive clean and reinstall the original setup. Or if the hard drive is shot replace the drive and re-install on a new drive. It is always nice to have a backup pc. Being 4 yrs old is not that old and should make a fine back up pc. If nothing else with a good hard drive in it you could use it to store your backup data.

For myself I use AVAST free for antivirus, an older version of zone alarm pro, Superantispyware, malwarebytes, spywareblaster, as my primary line of defense.

Ravencajun wrote one thing people don't think of when they give away a pc is you are also giving away your copy of xp and right now they are getting harder to get so you might want to hang on to it in case you should want to use that copy of xp again, you would have to get it approved and tell them the old pc is not going to be used it is dead, they generally will allow you to transfer your one copy to another pc in that case.

That has not been the case for at least 2 years with factory built computers. The XP key is tied to that Compaq motherboard and MS will not allow it to be installed on any other machine. Vacuumfreak can use any copy of XP Home and rebuild his computer but when they get to entering the key they use the one tied to the Compaq computer. I am doing that very thing as I type this message, using my own OEM copy but the key on the Compaq - and I am past the key requirement with no issues.

As the drive seems so corrupt I would format it as I have done this one so you start off squeaky clean with the new install.