Cannot delete partition on harddrive

[Guest]

Setup says inportant files are present and needed to continue set up

I want to completely erase both hardrives and reinstall windows xp. I can
delete the partition on F: but not Cfor above reason). Also how do I go
about reinstalling with out getting the opton to run windows xp or windows
xp?

 

[John Barnett MVP]

You can't delete the C: drive from within windows simply because it is in
use. Insert your windows xp cd into the cd-rom and reinstall the software.
You will have the option to reformat etc from here.
To find out more about reinstalling go to my website
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org click the Win XP Faq button and take a look
at questions 7, 41 and 85

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Setup says inportant files are present and needed to continue set up

I want to completely erase both hardrives and reinstall windows xp. I can
delete the partition on F: but not Cfor above reason). Also how do I go
about reinstalling with out getting the opton to run windows xp or windows
xp?

It sounds like you're trying to format the drive containing the
system volume from within WinXP. You can't. This would be the computer
equivalent of sawing off the tree limb you're sitting on, and WinXP is
"too smart" to allow this.

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

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[Guest]

You could boot from a 98SE boot floppy and run format on drive c. You could
use a hard drive utility (whatever your hard drive manufacturer, they
probably have a disk utility) to zero fill the drive and then XP
install/setup would detect it as a new hard drive.

You should also be able to accomplish it as a part of setup, but, if you
cannot the above lists 2 other options.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Windows at time may be depressing but it isn't suicidal and won't self
destruction by allowing itself to be deleted.

You need to set your BIOS to look for the optical drive (CD and/or DVD) as
the first bootable device at setup and boot from the Windows CD. Ignore the
F2 for the Recovery Console, go through to the F8 page to accept the EULA.
You will then be given the offer to delete the current partition(s), create
a new partition (or more) and then format the drive.