Fil Posted January 9, 2005 Posted January 9, 2005 i have a gateway pc with xp on it. and now its running crappy, so i want to reinstall xp on it. i tried to install xp over the current one on the hard drive, but succeeded in making 2 XPs to choose from upon start up. the restore disk that came with it doesnt even work. it loads up and the recovery windows just does nothing but stay open. can someone help me reinstall windows without buying anything? thanx Quote
FPCH Admin AWS Posted January 9, 2005 FPCH Admin Posted January 9, 2005 When installing XP from CD there is an option to delete partitions. If you don't use the option to format the disk you will end up with what you have. 2 instances of the OS. Start the install again and this time let Windows format the disk before install to remove the other 2 installs. Quote Off Topic Forum - Unlike the Rest
Fil Posted January 9, 2005 Author Posted January 9, 2005 when i try to delete it wont let me. and it wont let me make a 2nd partition or delete the current one. Quote
FPCH Admin AWS Posted January 10, 2005 FPCH Admin Posted January 10, 2005 Are you booting from the XP cd to do the install? There is an option to remove the partitions. When you get to the partition screen you highlight the partition and select delete. It will ask you to confirm and after you confirm it the partition will show one big unformatted partitions. Create the partition and after you do you should see 2 partitions. One 8 megs in size and the other the size of the rest of the disk. Hit enter to install. The next step will instruct you to format the disk. Select quick format (ntfs). Once the format is done you''ll get a screen saying Windows Install will reboot your computer in 15 seconds. Hit enter to reboot right away. On reboot the OS will install. Quote Off Topic Forum - Unlike the Rest
TriForce Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 You have to boot from the windows XP CDrom to format the hard drive. To do this go into your bios and give your CDrom drive boot priority over the harddrive. You can always change it back later. Quote
Fil Posted January 11, 2005 Author Posted January 11, 2005 like i said when i try to delete the partion it says "unable to delete the partion hit enter to continue" which takes t the screen that says create delete partition. and it wont let make a new partition. it says to hit C to make a new parion. i prolly hit C a million times and nothing happened. could it be a prob with my XP disk? Quote
GavinO Posted January 11, 2005 Posted January 11, 2005 Were there any sort of security settings on the existing XP partition? If all else fails, you should be able to use a Linux boot CD (usually called a Live CD) to boot the machine and enter a command prompt, and run the Linux version of FDisk from there. I have yet to encounter a partition that that utility won't get rid of (I've previously had problems like yours deleting HP-UX partitions, as the DOS utility requires you to enter the partition name using all capital letters, while HP-UX partitions are named in lower-case letters) Quote -The Gavster Three students died that year at the academy; one was executed, one was killed in a training accident, and one died of natural causes, for a knife to back will naturally kill anyone. -RA Salvatore Like to IRC? Try http://irc.randomirc.com
FPCH Admin AWS Posted January 12, 2005 FPCH Admin Posted January 12, 2005 You could use MaxBlast available at Maxtors site or the format tool available at Western Digital to do a low level format of the disk before you install XP. That way XP would see the disk as being completely empty and you'd be able to create as many partitions as you need. Quote Off Topic Forum - Unlike the Rest
Fil Posted January 14, 2005 Author Posted January 14, 2005 maxblast works great. it deleted the current partition n read of the cd to maje a new one n to install win. thanx . awsome :D :cool: :) Quote
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