Re-Format and reinstall of XP

Greetings!

This isn't your typical "How do I install XP?" thread. I'm hoping anyway. I paged around a bit and didn't find anyone else with this problem and I did read the Formatting your PC in the FAQ section. I also did a couple of searches here and couldn't find anyone having similar problems

Here's what's up:

I have a laptop with XP Home and am installing XP Pro. I want to reformat and start with a clean disk and a fresh install of XP Pro. I installed XP pro without probems. Once everything was installed I noticed that I still have directories on the drive from before the install. I obviously forgot to format.

I went back and step by step went through the setup process again, but kept missing the "reformat" step. I was very careful to read every page before making any choices and I still missed the step where I tell it to format the hard drive. After talking around and surfing, I discovered that the format takes place during the "Select a partition to install Windows" screen.

That page during my setup lists three partitions:

Unpartitioned space 39 MB
C: Partition1 [NTFS] 38107 MB <28067 MB free>
Unpartitioned space 8 MB

I have selected the C: several times to (re)install to. I understand now that I am supposed to delete all of the partitions, then setup should guide me through the process of formatting and re-creating partitions. When I select "Partition1 (c: )" to delete, I get this message:

"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."

The next thing I tried to do was to format without using the XP Setup disk. I downloaded the fdisk utility and burned it to a CD. I re-booted and ran fdisk.

Fdisk gives me the option to create partition, delete partition, select bootable partition and re-write master boot record.

I try to delete the c: drive partition from there and get this message: "You cannot do this in standard mode. Strike any key to return to main menu"

Also from the disk install prompt I tried "format c:" I get this message:

Invalid drive, or format not supported
FORMAT [/Help] drive: [/F:size] [/N:sectors /T:tracks] [/1] [/4] [/8]
[/A] [[/B | /S] [/J]] [/Q | /U] [/V:[label]] [/X]

I thought the disk boot might have reassigned drive letters so I did a "dir c:" to see if I got the right drive letter and it listed all the directories I currently have on my C: drive.

I thought I was being smart with the fdisk. I am pretty clueless on where to go from here and would be happy to entertain any suggestions that I might get. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

This right here tells me you didn't boot off of the XP CD. When you do, it will let you remove those partitions.

 

When I first start the system with the XP disk in the drive, I get a request to hit any key to boot. I do and I get this message on the grey bar at the bottom of the screen

Windows setup is loading files (x)

For "X" appears

windows executive
kernel debuggger dll
windows setup pci driver
ac-pi plug and play bus driver
pcmcia support
ati ide driver
dynamic volume support
enhanced host controller
open host controller
universal host controller
serial port enumerator
video driver
keyboard driver
adaptek scsi driver

[edit]There were a lot more, I was just trying to type them in as they went flying by.

How can I be sure that it's booting from the disk?

 

Remove the hard drive from the boot order in the bios. It will force boot to CD.

Chances are, if you remove the CD, you will see the same setup as before. Thats another way of checking if you are booting to CD, or not.

 

OK, I'll try that.

Thanks!