Formatting a Partitioned HD

Hi, this is my first post here, but I'm looking for help with formatting a partiotned hard drive.

I have a copy of Win98 installed on the C: section of the hard drive, and a copy of XP sp2 on the D: section. when i look into the Drive management program, it says that the D: section is the boot and C: is the system, and therefore will not let me delete the partion and it is also stopping me from removing the C: section too. I'm trying to do a complete format of both drives and remove the partition

The C: section is FAT and D: NTFS, both sections are reading as healthy also

When i put the windows xp cdrom into the drive and restart i still only get the option to either boot into 98 or xp and NOT the option to boot from cd beforehand, even when the bios settings are changed.

If anyone could offer any information or solution to my problem that would be great,

thanks in advance,
IH8BILLG8S.

 

Hello Bill, welcome to Major Geeks.

Please confirm that you actually want to clear both these partitions off your hard drive and re- install Windows XP from your XP CD?

When you have old stuff cluttering the drive it is always best to remove (not reformat)the old partitions and create new ones.

You can use Fdisk from a windows 98 startup floppy (do you have a floppy drive) to remove the Windows 98 one or diskpart from windows XP to remove either or both.

When booting from the XP CD, if the BIOS settings are correct,

Watch the screen carefully at boot.
It will display the notice
'press any key to boot from cd'
for a few seconds.

If you miss this the system will continue to boot from the hard drive
If you catch it the system should boot to windows setup from the CD.

Choose the repair console at the first R you are offered and use typein
diskpart at the command prompt.

Alternatively boot to windows 98, go to add/remove programs in the control panel and make a startup floppy.

Use this to boot the pc and type fdisk at the command prompt.

 

yeah, i'm looking to remove the partition and format to re-install xp

 

All the bios settimgs are correct as far as i can see.
settings are:
boot 1: cdrom
boot 2: hd
boot 3:floppy

bu still no boot from cd option :confused

 

Is this a Microsoft CD or a manufacturers recovery disk?

 

its an official microsoft upgrade to xp sp 1 disk

 

Presumably you used this when you upgraded from 98 in the past and chose the option to keep 98?

You will have to repeat this process but this time choose fresh installation.

A good job you mentioned this while you still had 98 on the drive. Do you have the 98 CD. You will need it in the future if you ever have to re-install again from the XP CD.

You can boot to 98 and run the installation from there.

 

okay thanks, but with reg. to the formatting problem, i cant get the boot from cd prompt to appear with the info i've given have you got any ideas as to where i'm going wrong?

 

oops thanks
*will read twice b4 reply next time lol*

 

I would recommend you make a win 98 start floppy.

Then change your boot order to
floppy
Cd
hard Drive

When you come to format the new partition during setup choose FAT32 to start with ( will only work up to 32 G) so that you can still get to the partition from the win 98 floppy.

When everything is hunky dory you can then convert to NTFS with your shiny new XP installation.

Good luck I'm out in the field for the rest of today so perhaps some other Geek will help if needed.

 

Hmmm I read the post but if you are doing an XP installation, SI had stated the right BO but your your system should be in DOS and be booting from CD (no floppy in the drive) and then automatically re-formatting to NTFS with the new installation irrespective of previous formats.

 

Cheers for all the help guys, got it all sorted out, now fingers crossed the girlfriends sims 2 will work properly and i can get back to halo 3 on the 360 yes thats what all this fuss was about lol bloomin sims.

 

Bold Eagle

Bill has an upgrade CD - Installation is very different from these. He has to convince setup there is a valid previous installation to upgrade, for one thing. There are other ways but the best way to do this is to have one!

Keeping things in FAT was a precaution as stated.

Bill
I'm glad you got enough to do the job.