Hard drive - FAT32 and an NTFS partition?

[Guest]

Can someone explain to me how to remove this partition and load XP? fdisk
will not remove because there's a logical drive. But when I try to remove
logical drive, it says that it doesn't exist. ??? I just want the drive
back w/o partition.

Also, XP setup won't run from DOS and the CD doesn't autorun.

What a mess - I've been monkeying with this for too long... HELP!

Thanks much.

 

[Bob I]

Is you BIOS set to BOOT from the CD?

 

[Guest]

yes

Is you BIOS set to BOOT from the CD?

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Celmer,

If your BIOS is set to boot from a CD, insert your XP CD into the disk
drive, and re-boot. The computer should then boot from the XP CD, and it
will offer you the opportunity to fdisk (do partition work).
AFAIK, XP *cannot* be installed from a DOS prompt, and certainly not from
within Windows. You also cannot do partition work from within windows. You
certainly could boot with a regular boot floppy and fdisk from there.

--
Curt

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://www.aumha.org/


| Can someone explain to me how to remove this partition and load XP? fdisk
| will not remove because there's a logical drive. But when I try to remove
| logical drive, it says that it doesn't exist. ??? I just want the drive
| back w/o partition.
|
| Also, XP setup won't run from DOS and the CD doesn't autorun.
|
| What a mess - I've been monkeying with this for too long... HELP!
|
| Thanks much.

 

[John]

yes

As everyone told you, boot from the XP CD where you will be offered the
chance to delete old partitions, make new ones and format them before
installing XP.

If you can't boot from the XP CD then either ...

1. The boot order in the comp's bios does not list the CD reader
*before* any hardrive.

2. The comp is incapable of booting from a CD, and if this is the case,
I would doubt its ability to even run XP (comp is way too old).

3. The XP CD or the CD drive is defective.

John

 

[Noncompliant]

Fdisk cannot remove an NTFS partition that is a logical drive within an
extended partition. There's a knowledge base article on it.

From appearances of your post, you have a hard drive that has never been
introduced to your PC before. I would zero write it with software from the
hard drive manufacturer first. Such software should be on bootable media
from floppy or CD. Not only will that wipe out any partitions, it will wipe
the mbr area of the hard disk and anything that resides there as well. The
XP pre-setup will create a new partition and mbr.