Removing partitions

Bulmers

Hi,

I have 2 partitions om my laptop, one is 2G and the other is 9G, the 2G one has the OS sys on it, i would like to just have one drive given my memory so small (old laptop). I tried at the Win XP install window to delete all partitions but it wont let me delete the 2G one as it says that there are files copied onto it for set up??

I dont have partition magic etc but was just wondering is there anyway i can do this via installation process? Not worried about losing data etc.

thanks

2 Espressi

if you're not worried about losing data, then do a search for clean slate, it's a little DOS app you can caopy onto a boot disk, it removes all partitions, taking all info with it, you can reformat the HDD when you reinstall XP.

garthv

Yeh, when you are installing the new Windows, set the computer to boot from disk instead of just sticking the windows CD in and running the install from your desktop.

When you run the install from your desktop windows copies the setup files to the master boot partition so you will not be able to delete it.

If you boot straight to your windows disk instead, you will have the option to delete all data and partitions from your hard drive

Bulmers

thanks for that, so do i just need to make the 6 boot floppy disks then for XP and use them instead? I am not too familiar with doing it this way, the XP program on the CD is about 500Mb, will the CD be used at all for the installation?

thanks

garthv

Uh no dont use the floppy disks......
Go into the BIOS of your PC, set first boot options to IDE CD ROM device and then reboot your machine with the cd in it. This will bring your straight into a windows install menu as it boots.

Bulmers

Tried that with the CD, went into BIOS settings, put the 1st boot device to CD and left the other two blank, restarted computer, heard disc spinning etc but then got error that "no bootable drive selected"...tried setting all boot searches to cd/dvd drive, still no joy, any ideas?

thanks

garthv

How many cd drives do you have?

Bulmers

just the one, it's a laptop computer, not sure if i mentioned that...cd works fine for everything else.