I was just given a Dell Dimension 4300 - what to do with it?

[Praetor]

throughout the whole process i recieved a bunch of errors, but then why i hit 'retry' it worked alright.

sounds like memory issues... does it pass Memtest86?

Now it can't successfully install Windows without an error coming up. The new one is "strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for system utility" on a black screen, just popped up in the middle of the installation. I'm assuming the hard drive is just bad. Or could it be something else? That leads me to my question...

Have you reset the CMOS on the board yet?

Although I'm fairly sure it's just the hard drive? Also, I have 2 hard drives in my current PC. How easy would it be to just transfer them to the other machine? If I just take them out, and plug them in the 4300 will it just boot up normally?

It might boot normally: you might have to reinstall the OS

how can I retrieve the specs? How do I look them up on my current system too?

You can look for labels and markings on the parts themselves or goto Dell's website (or google) and look up the model number

If I reformat and re-install, will that rid of the viruses? Because I thought that's what I already tried to do....

For the most part ... yes. Naturally it does depend on the type of virus it had

Is there another way I should be re-formatting an re-installing?

Have a look here

hmmm...after I did the 'repair' install it seemed to go through the whole process this time without any errors. i'm at the Windows XP desktop now...

what does this mean? do you think it actually fixed itself somehow?

It means you should probably format the system and reinstall the OS rather than trying to repair whats there

okay...by what i explained to you, do you think i got rid of the potential viruses?

You can never be truely sure but odds are you're ok.

what do you think about that system message i got the first time it booted up?

It probably is a strong indiciator for a reinstall instead of a repair

do you think this hard drive is just bad?

Quite possible, you can do some testing via MaxBlast (or at least i think u can)