Problem Reformating from Windows 98 to XP

My dad gave me a latop he has not used for about 3 years. It has Windows 98 on it, I want to reformat it to Windows XP. I boot up with the Windows XP CD. I get to the screen to select witch partition I want to delete. I hit Delete on the C: Drive. I get this when I try to do it.

"Setup is unable to perform the requested operation on the selected partition. This partition contains temporary setup files that are required to complete the installation.

Am I supposed to reformat differently on Windows 98 or something? Thanks alot!

 

Hi and welcome to MajorGeeks.

Did you set the Bios to boot from CD as the first device?

 

cant say I've seen that happen before. does the laptop have a floppy drive per chance? if it does, you can make a bootable Fdisk floppy using this updated Fdisk utility http://www.bootdisk.com/kentucky/newfdisk.zip

using that you should be able to delete the partition, and then boot from your XP cd and install XP.

 

Well, from the above two posts, it doesn't seem like you read all the way through (unless I'm wrong with my reading (has happened before)).

The original poster has booted to the windows XP cd.

BUT, my question is thus:

What is the make an model of the laptop. CPU? Memory? Are you sure you want to install XP on this? we WANT more info! Need, require...must must must

 

I just spent about 45 minutes troubleshooting with him via AIM, and no matter what boot floppy approach we took, the partition wouldnt delete. I finally had him run MaxBlast 4 bootable CD and that took care of it.

very curious why it wouldnt delete through Windows setup and other means, but its working now.