Hello, I have a v. strange problem and hope that someone with expertise can advise me step by step!

One day, I was on the Internet with my laptop and had several IE browsers as is the case when I am online. I remember that I clicked on a popup by mistake and something started to download, and then I lost internet connectivity altogether! I've restarted and reconfigured my network settings. My spybot started going frantic with changes that were being made to the registry, which I kept on denying. Furthermore, my google toolbar was eliminated completely!
The loss of connectivity has nothing to do with my ISP since I connected another P.C and it works perfectly fine. It looks i have a virus or maybe my registry keys are corrupted?

1) Is the best way to fix this problem reinstall windows xp (prof version) from scratch?
a) if so, when backing up my files, is it advisable to use the backup tool in system tools in accessories or should i just copy on disks?
b) it seems a bit daunting that i have 12Gigs, which i just backed up on the local hard drive, but it would be advisable to transfer that out of my pc onto disks before i go on with the fresh start install, no?

2) please tell me if there is another way to deal with this problem

Thanks! Ciao.

Hiya Technovice again. I've just replied to your post in Windows XP. Please follow those directions, and if you can help it, please prevent double posting.

Thanks .