Topic: Reinstalling Windows... Help needed....

[F.O.Bean]

do you have dual-layer or whatever the bigger density floppies are? you need 6

if so, search around and find out how to make the boot disks, its painless, then just start from disk 1 and begin, works like a charm for me, searching for boot disk links now bud!

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305595#XSLTH3131121122120121120120

http://www.thewebguy.org/theitguy/ms0004.html

cant find the one link that helped me tho, good luck!

[JasonR]

Im having the exact same problem as this guy

http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/eac/knowledgebaseAnswer/0,295199,sid63_gci973120,00.html

I cant get it to delete the partition... I tried to do the format thing and it wouldnt dimount... Do I need some kind of thing to wipe the partitions like the guy recomends? Is there any free program to do it?

It sounds like that guy is trying to delete his Windows partition from within Windows - not gonna happen.  Do you get that error (or some kind of error regarding not being able to delete the partition) after booting from the Windows CD, accepting the license agreement, letting it search for existing installations, etc.?  I've only had that happen personally when they're non-Windows partitions.  Just curious - could it be a 'recovery' partition provided by a hardware manufacturer like IBM or Dell to allow you to quickly recover the system to the delivered state?

Anyway - basically you need an alternate method to delete the partition(s).  fdisk running on a DOS disk will likely do the trick.  I usually just throw a Linux build CD in the machine and pretend I'm going to install Linux since it lets me easily take good control of partitions with Disk Druid.

Start by grabbing a DOS disk with fdisk and see if that does the trick.  If not, you can download a boot CD with any number of utilities that can take control over the situation.

And don't bother creating Windows start CDs (the set of 3 to 6 disks).  That's only a workaround intended for systems that can't boot from CD and it will either work or fail in exactly the same way that booting from the CD does.

- Jason

[JasonR]

You can get a Boot Disk (floppy) here: http://www.bootdisk.com/
If it's not on there, or you need a more powerful version, you can get FDisk here: http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

If you get desperate, this commercial program claims to wipe out the partition table problems simply: http://www.meixler-tech.com/pzapper/

Or download something like CentOS-3.4-i386-Server.iso from one of the mirrors: http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=13 like this one:
http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/centos/3.5/isos/i386/CentOS-3.4-i386-Server.iso
Burn to CDR, boot, pretend to do a Linux installation and select Disk Druid to partition your drive.  You'll see all the partitions.  Delete them all.  You may have to create a partition of some type for it to continue and actually delete the existing partitions.  If you're not comfortable with Linux though, this might be a lot more confusing that necessary.  Try the above solutions first.

Oh - or just download and install Linux and be done with Windows. 

- Jason

[bluegrass_brad]

...
I format my windoze machine at least once every 6 months or so, keeps it running clean.
...
It's nice and stable, so I figure why mess with a good thing.

I'd point out the humor here, but do I really have to?

BTW - I do a top end rebuild on my car every 7500 miles to keep it running clean... 

As to Alex's question, you should be able to see existing drive partitions and select one to install on, delete one or more, create one or more, etc.  If there's a 15GB partition on say an 80GB drive, and you want to use the entire 80GB for your Windows partition (c: drive by convention), then click on that 15GB partition, delete it, confirm that action, select the 80GB of unpartitioned space to install on, confirm that you want to use the entire space, etc.  You can partition in advance in DOS or a pre-install environment but it's generally only necessary when there are non-windows partitions on the drive and the Win installation is baffled by them.

- Jason

Well it's nice and stable now, but it took a long time to get it that way.  Basically windows sucks though, there is no work around for that.  If I actually used it for anything I would have Linux.  Course, thats what OSX is based on

[chase]

All of these are good solutions, however, you can delete the partition and make a new one by popping in the XP CD and booting off that.  For detailed step by step instructions with pictures check out this link:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpwindowsinstall/indexfullpage.htm

This way you can place the XP CD in your computer before you remove the partition and it will modify the boot.ini file so it boots off the CD when your ocmputer restarts.  No need to deal with that grumpy BIOS!  Much easier than getting boot discs and dealing with that nasty command line    Alternatively, if you like the command line I suggest http://linuxiso.org

[Swampy]

problem is, I dont get this screen: It never asks if I want to reformat... I dont really know much about computers, so please be patient with me

[JasonR]

Do you get the screen(s) before that one?  This one is where you make decisions about partitions.  If it loads, do you get an error after that (like you described previously)?  If that's the case, you need to try to wipe out the partition(s) on the drive using another method (DOS Boot Disk with fdisk, another OS installation, a purpose-made partition wiping program, etc.)

[dnsacks]

Alex -- sometimes throwing $$$ at a problem can bring about the easiest solution.  You might just want to pick up the cheapest hard drive you can find -- see www.salescircular.com for nice offers at local brick and mortar stores -- and simply do a fresh os install onto a brand new hard drive.  Then, you could add your existing hard drive back in as a second drive.