magpienja,
I have often heard guys say they are going to clean there HD and start a fresh...I wonder whats involved...I don't have an installation Vista disc...is it just a case of formating the HD or will that also wipe off the operating system.
If you're not wiping the operating system, then you're not starting fresh. Simple as.
Wiping and re-installing is always best, its terribly easy to spend hours, days or weeks of your life trying to clean up a drive that's full of 10 years worth of
. Plus you're never going to be able to properly clean up the backend stuff (registry stuff and other scraps left behind by all the software and other stuff you've messed around with over the years).
If you are re-using a computer, then yes... you format the drive and then install the OS of your choice.
If you are selling or scrapping the computer, my preference is just to remove the hard drive and dispose of the computer ex-drive. Drives are cheap as chips these days, so the new owner can't complain about having to buy one.