Clean Install of XP Problems. Help!!

Hello All, I'm working on a PC which had a bad file system. I didn't have the XP Disk for this pc, so I used my Win XP disk (without activating) to reinstall Win XP to make sure the hard drive and all worked OK before I got another copy of Win XP. I'm trying to do a clean install of Windows XP Home Edition and when I get to the screen where I can delete the partion and create a new one it won't let me delete it. It says there's files on the partion that are needed to install windows, so when I try to install over the operating system that's in there now it says installing more than one system on the same partion might cause problems. So how can i uninstall the Win XP operating system that's on the pc now, so I can install the other one?

Thanks for any help in advance!
2bTimconfused

 

Get your hands on Win98 or ME boot floppy and fdisk the hard drive, then boot to your XP CD...

 

Thanks for the help...OK I just happen to have a pc with win 98 SE will that work? If so how do I fdisk the harddrive with the floppy? OR If I don't have a floppy can I use a CD to do this?

Thanks in advance for your help!
2bTim

 

Go into the Win98 control panel > add/remove programs and you'll have a tab for startup disk. put a blank floppy in the drive and follow the prompts. Now put the new floppy in the other PC, boot to it, and select 'Start computer without CDROM support' because you won't need the CD and it boots way quicker. At the A:> prompt, type 'fdisk' and choose 'delete partition' after answering yes to the first few questions. Then choose 'delete non-DOS partition' and follow the prompts. If fdisk reports small HD sizes, don't worry about it. Put your XP CD in the CD drive and ctrl-alt-del and boot to the XP CD and format/install as usual. If you don't have a floppy drive on the XP PC, you can still do what you need to. Let us know if you have no floppy drive on the WinXP computer and I'll post some info.

hopperdave2000