Installing XP and Partitioned drives

[Guest]

To make a long story short, my computer can not find XP. It just shows
Windows 98 and goes to IBM's recovery process which hasn't fixed the problem.
(I stupidly tried to shut down while AVG was scanning and wouldn't cancel, so
I think the file it was looking at got corrupted and after blue screens, a
safe mode, and attempted recoveries, my computer can not find XP).

I'm pretty sure my only recourse is to re-install XP.

I got my laptop from UNC which partitioned the 40G hard drive so XP is on C:
and My Documents is on D:. I tried installing XP and came to a screen that
said "choose where you want to install XP..." unpartitioned 35***MB and D:
*****MB IBM something or other (the * represent that I can't remember the
exact number). I'm guessing the D: IBM not _my_ D:.

My question is this, if I install XP on a C:, will it erase my D: and
therefore all my documents?

 

[Guest]

Installing XP on a partition shouldn't affect the other partition.

The key point is to ensure that the partition you're installing-to is the
Active partition. Otherwise, nasty things are almost guaranteed to happen.
You can check this with a DOS bootdisk and FDISK.

 

[Guest]

Uh, I'm sorry, "active partition"?

So, I should call it a C: and it'll know to stay away from anything
previously called D:?

Abby