I'm glad you've got XP, this makes things a lot easier.
I don't know much about computers, but I've learned enough to work it myself if problems arise. There are a few things I will do with my computer.
Since you're doing a fresh install, here are a few guidelines I follow for a good install.
Usually partitioning your harddrive is a good idea, simply for these reasons. If windows gets messed up somewhere along the line, you can do a re-install without loosing all your valuable data on your harddrive. Make it into two partitions (C and D or something like that), and give the Windows OS partition a little larger space than the storage. On my partition, I have 70gigs dedicated to WinOS and 50gigs dedicated to my files. If you feel like that's not enough for your storage, you can split it 50/50 as well.
I also recommand a second harddrive. If you have any hardware stores in your area that's anything like Fry's Electronics, harddrives come pretty cheap. Last promotion I saw for a 200 Gig harddrive was somewhere between 90-120 dollars (mail in rebate usually needed). 120-gig harddrive are sold for 60 dollars on some promotional weekends. This way, you can have a back up of your data if the partitions didn't work (I say this because about three years ago, Mandrake decided to partition my boyfriend's harddrive because it didn't like how it was partitioned. Needless to say, not only was he royally pissed off at Mandrake, he had lost a lot of programming projects he had been making to learn various programming languages).
Before you hook your computer up to the network, make sure you have an updated virus scanner already running. I know McAfee usually have an updated .dat file for all their customers to download and install themselves on the computer. This way, the virus scanner will be sure to catch everything that might come through. I'm not sure if Norton has this on their website, but it's worth your while to take a look.
First things first, patch the computer (No, I'm not trying to treat you as a newbie. These are just guidelines I learned from my boyfriend, and even he follows them himself whenever he decided to clear up his harddrive). As you already know, this takes a while (I usually go watch a movie while doing this: may I suggest The Italian Job?).
I usually don't format or make a second partition until Windows is up and running all the way. That way, I get that little sector cache windows occupies on the harddrive while installing the system. (I use compmgmt.msc to format the remaining harddrive space...)
Then just save all your works on the second partition and you should be good to go
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