Cannot delete old partition when re-installing XP...

Welp I have an old HP Pavilion 551w that I am trying to clean off and get a fresh install of XP Professional on. When I go through start up and it asks where I want to put it, I want to delete the partition on my C: and replace it with a fresh partition and a fresh install of XP. For some reason it will not allow me to delete the partition. I get the following error message: "Setup is unable to perform the requested operation on the selected partition. The partition contains temporary Setup files that are required to complete the installation."

I am completely lost on what to do here, I thought about trying to install WIn98 and then doing fdisk on the drive to clear it off or taking the drive out of the HP and putting it into my other pc to try and delete the partition that way. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

If you dont need the partition then wipe and format the entire hardrive..then start from sctratch. If ya need it...i can send ya a iso of windows wipe disk. You run it..it cleans the drive and then it asks for you installation disks.

 

Yeah I don't want the old partition at all I just want to wipe it reformat and make one partition with a fresh install of XP Pro on there. Ozzy if I could get that wipe cd from you that would be great. DDp I am a little confused about what a win9x bootdisk is. Also thanks for the feedback, I would love to get this taken care of so I can sell this pc. Thanks again.

 

That is what I figured ddp but for some reason since I already have XP Pro on there, it will not let me run my Win98 disc. It says it must be launched in dos mode. But for some reason it does not give me the option of starting up with a dos prompt. I have been looking on CNet to see if there are any partition programs I could get to just wipe the damn thing. It's driving me nuts!

 

I pm you...your iso is a waiting for a email address...lol

 

Will this wipe disk work on XP Pro? Because it already has it on there so I just wanted to make sure.

 

Will this wipe disk work on XP Pro? Because it already has it on there so I just wanted to make sure.

 

I was trying to use it through windows. I can never remember where to go to tell the pc to boot from a cd.

 

okay I got the partition deleted using the fdisk feature on a win98 boot disk. Then using fdisk I created a new partition. I then used the "format c: /s" to format the drive. Now I am stuck I cannot get the pc to boot the xp disc. I am sure it is something simple I have missed.