Help: Formatting Issues.

[Archer]

I have been running a home assembled system that I had built for me for
almost two years. Recently I discovered that due to the way that the system
was originally set up I had run out of memory on C: (the system drive.). My
computer began looping during startup and would eventually freeze requiring a
hard shut down. Between myself and a few friends who are more knowledgeable
with software and BIOS issues, we discovered the lack of memory. The
consensus is that i needed to reformat the drive to get rid of the partitions
and then reinstall the OS. When I try to delete the partitions I get a
readout indicating there are two exact duplicates of windows running on my PC
from two different partitions on the drive. Windows will not allow me to
delete either of these partitions during install. I have read the posts
under the format hard drive section and am still unable to get the system to
repartition and reinstall the OS. All other system components are working in
accordance with the tech data and manufacturer support. The only thing I can
come up with is there is a problem with windows or I have a bad Hard drive.
Does anyone have any suggestions.

 

[DL]

Its got nothing to do with, software, bios or memory.
I suspect you have too little free space on C
There are a number of options
1) Nuke everything and start over, in which case you boot from the winxp cd,
to delete the partitions (You will lose *everything* on the PC)
2) Clean up your drives and move certain items to the D (other) drive
3) Use a third party tool to merge the partitions.
Which option to be reccommended might depend amongst other things on what
size you current drives are and what free space is shown on each.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have been running a home assembled system that I had built for me for
almost two years. Recently I discovered that due to the way that the
system
was originally set up I had run out of memory on C: (the system drive.).
My
computer began looping during startup and would eventually freeze
requiring a
hard shut down. Between myself and a few friends who are more
knowledgeable
with software and BIOS issues, we discovered the lack of memory. The
consensus is that i needed to reformat the drive to get rid of the
partitions
and then reinstall the OS. When I try to delete the partitions I get a
readout indicating there are two exact duplicates of windows running on my
PC
from two different partitions on the drive. Windows will not allow me to
delete either of these partitions during install. I have read the posts
under the format hard drive section and am still unable to get the system
to
repartition and reinstall the OS. All other system components are working
in
accordance with the tech data and manufacturer support. The only thing I
can
come up with is there is a problem with windows or I have a bad Hard
drive.
Does anyone have any suggestions.

I suspect that you're trying to re-install Windows while Windows
is active. You cannot do this. You must set the boot order in the
BIOS so that the primary boot device is your CD drive, then
boot the machine from your WinXP CD and follow the prompts.