How to format...?

I had windows xp and linux(mandriva). But i got my primary partition formatted as it got badly affected by viruses, trojans, spams....... however i did not install windows immediately, i used linux for a few days and thereafter i could not install xp. Though the i can boot from the xp cd, the process stops at initial step itself. I thought at first that my hard disk might have got developed some bad sectors, but after i consulted the service provider i got to that it is a software problem arised as i formatted primary partition and left it so with linux on my hard disk. Now i wish to format the whole hard disk deleting all the partitions including the linux partition. I tried it with partition magic but i ended up with unformatted linux boot partition using my friends healthy hard disk which has only xp.
Now can anyone send a software/link/solution which can completely format deleting all the partitions of a harddisk without affecting the data in the second harddisk?

unplug second hard disk
you need to do a simple search on the Internet the name of the hard disk lets say Hitachi and fitness test

the fitness test will low level format the drive and fix it if there is error, then you can start as new...

just take a new bootable cd of window xp new version
then f disk and take partisions and then u can setup the window
without fdisk u can do this
only fdisk is kills the virues

Boot to your xp cd, tell it you want to install xp and delete the partitions on your drive. You can have a completely unformatted, unpartioned drive and as long as it is recognized as a drive booting from the xp cd will function normally.

Hi,
Just a thought.
I run two hard discs on this thing, as from experience, partioning can be dodgy, as there are overlaps.
It can be sorted, but with a possible loss of data.
About 拢200 in a shop to remove partitions and re-instal data.