Can't Format a Partition...

  • Thread starter Thread starter JP
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J

JP

I just bought a new laptop. It had XP Home SP3 loaded on the C: partition
with ~40GB and the remaining 160GB set as the D: partition. I don't want any
partitions, so using the XP disk that came with the laptop, I have worked all
weekend trying to get rid of the partitions and have XP Home loaded on the
entire 160GB HDD. I have failed miserably and seek any guidance that people
might offer....

At this point, I still have XP Home on the C: partition, and I now also have
XP Home set up on the F: partition. However, for reasons I can't understand,
when I run XP Setup to delete the C: partition, it won't let me and gives the
following message when I hit "D":
"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."

Furthermore, if I try to format the C: partition when in XP off of the F:
partition, a dialogue box pops up with "Windows was unable to complete the
format".

Worse, when I ran the command line and tried to format C: from DOS, it
initally came back with the following message: "Would you like to force a
dismount on this volume (y/n)?" I responded "y", and the next message was:
"Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid" and
formatting began. It got all the way to 99% and then the following message
came back: "System Partition is not allowed to be formatted".

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 
JP said:
I just bought a new laptop. It had XP Home SP3 loaded on the C: partition
with ~40GB and the remaining 160GB set as the D: partition. I don't want
any
partitions, so using the XP disk that came with the laptop, I have worked
all
weekend trying to get rid of the partitions and have XP Home loaded on the
entire 160GB HDD. I have failed miserably and seek any guidance that
people
might offer....

At this point, I still have XP Home on the C: partition, and I now also
have
XP Home set up on the F: partition. However, for reasons I can't
understand,
when I run XP Setup to delete the C: partition, it won't let me and gives
the
following message when I hit "D":
"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."

Furthermore, if I try to format the C: partition when in XP off of the F:
partition, a dialogue box pops up with "Windows was unable to complete the
format".

Worse, when I ran the command line and tried to format C: from DOS, it
initally came back with the following message: "Would you like to force a
dismount on this volume (y/n)?" I responded "y", and the next message
was:
"Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid"
and
formatting began. It got all the way to 99% and then the following
message
came back: "System Partition is not allowed to be formatted".

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

You need to boot the computer with the XP CD. Once the installation starts
you need to tell the computer to delete all partitions on the drive (since
you now apparently have two partitions.) Once all partitions have been
deleted you can then have the installation program create one partition and
use it. Read and follow the onscreen instructions carefully. You do not
want to do a repair install but remove all and start fresh.

See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

Also Michael Steven's web site has some good step by step instructions to do
what you want to do. Just make sure you read for the CD install instead of
the floppy install. http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
especially around point 10b.
 
LVTravel:

Thanks for taking the time to respond, but please note from my original post
that I CAN'T delete the partition (copied from below):

However, for reasons I can't understand, when I run XP Setup to delete the
C: partition, it won't let me and gives the following message when I hit "D":
"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."

I'll read the links you sent my way, but I'm not optimistic....
 
JP said:
LVTravel:

Thanks for taking the time to respond, but please note from my original
post
that I CAN'T delete the partition (copied from below):

However, for reasons I can't understand, when I run XP Setup to delete the
C: partition, it won't let me and gives the following message when I hit
"D":
"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."

I'll read the links you sent my way, but I'm not optimistic....
Click to expand...

If you are attempting to delete the partitions and you can't get the
computer to do so, you are doing something wrong. The CD is designed to be
able to totally wipe a hard drive's partitions and be able to reinstall onto
new partitions. You must set the bios to boot from the CD. It appears that
you are not booting from the CD for the setup.
 
Are you sure this a winxp installation disk and not a manufacturers restore
disk, these days it is unusual to get anything other than restore disk sets
 
LVTravel:

Let me try to go at this another way: is there a way to create a perfect
copy of my XP Home CD that came with the laptop onto an external HDD that I
have? That way, I could change the boot sequence to boot up from the
external HDD....

Thanks again for all your help so far!
 
DL:

Yes, they're installation disks: I can boot another computer with it when
the disk is in the DVD drive. Thanks for the thought.
 
You don't want to install from an external Hard drive. Probably couldn't
get that drive to be bootable and install that way easily. If you boot to
the CD and follow the setup and attempt to delete the partition and it fails
you may have to use the program that DL specified in his last post.


Can you delete the larger partition (D)? If so, you may be able to then
delete C. Let me know what happens.
 
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