Formatting Hard Drive

[Super Dude]

I have a hard drive that has had a previous xp
installation. I am trying to format the drive so I can
load my own xp, but can not get rid of the previous xp's
8 MB unpartitioned area on drive, (it is protected system
boot/files from previos installation I think) Any
suggestions to completely clearing the hard drive?
P.S. Running recovery on my xp setup to gain access
requires the previous admin password (which I don't
have).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a hard drive that has had a previous xp
installation. I am trying to format the drive so I can
load my own xp, but can not get rid of the previous xp's
8 MB unpartitioned area on drive, (it is protected system
boot/files from previos installation I think) Any
suggestions to completely clearing the hard drive?
P.S. Running recovery on my xp setup to gain access
requires the previous admin password (which I don't
have).

- Boot your machine with your WinXP CD.
- Select "Install" when prompted.
- Select "Format" when prompted.

 

[Guest]

Tried this. It refuses to format the unpartioned 8MB
sector which has the previous windows xp install boot
sector.

 

[RonK]

Delete all the partitions and make a new one .

Tried this. It refuses to format the unpartioned 8MB
sector which has the previous windows xp install boot
sector.

 

[shitij tejpal]

if you have an OEM version cd then partitioning the drive will be a problem.
If on the other hand you have a full installation XP cd then you should not
have any problems.

 

[RonK]

I have a hard drive that has had a previous xp
installation. I am trying to format the drive so I can
load my own xp, but can not get rid of the previous xp's
8 MB unpartitioned area on drive, (it is protected system
boot/files from previos installation I think) Any
suggestions to completely clearing the hard drive?
P.S. Running recovery on my xp setup to gain access
requires the previous admin password (which I don't
have).

8 Meg Partition Created When Installing XP
That 8 meg partition is autocreated to handle dynamic disk information. When
a disk is converted to dynamic in the Disk Management snap-in, information
regarding the configuration and any dependencies (e.g. software RAID) are
stored on disk at the end of the drive. This is how a drive can be moved
from one dynamic disk array to another and be recognized as foreign drive.

The reason is that the space needs to be there should a user decide at any
time during the life of the Operating System that they want to enable
dynamic disks. The 8 meg is there for so that the option to enable dynamic
disks does not mean an Operating System reinstall. On the down side, it does
mean that users lose 8 meg of the drive.