Diseased Machines

So, infected with some Trojan/Virus/Spyware triumvirate, I+I debugged with LavaSoft, A.V.G. and HDCleaner. I also ran REGEDIT to manually find instances of the PSGuard software code that might cause [the (sh)] it to reload..
There was some indication that the windows file Kernel32.dll was affected and i had problems with my hard ware, so I+I reinstalled Win, on top off all my stuff. It seemed to work fine. Although slow. I have yet to delete the backup file system.
I should Be Happy That I have Software At All.
But i have three lame (PII) Machines that i inherited or found in trash over the years.  
The problem that I'm seeing with (PII) machines is that the HDs are burned out. they usually have two, so it's often possible to boot them although there's no storage room but the owners usually remove the network card, so stitching them together is out of the question. The best I can do is instal DOS and use them as word processors.  It's sad because once, the things probably cost 2G for the whole package, before they went curbside. And I should add that A few of these machines were dumped by non profit orgs that get state, federal and private money to cover their operating costs. Too bad they didn't delete their mailing lists