Had been running XPPro SP3 on an old HP Pavilion.  Had a WD Caviar Green 500GB that WENT BAD. Trying to use a Maxtor 200GB I had on hand, Due to virus I had to do a full erase, using 0 writing, Now I need to partition and format, NO OPERATING SYSTEM onHD. When I TRIED to run XPPro instalation it SHOWED the full size of HD 500GB as raw avaiable space it couldn't partition or format.  When I clicked to install a message came up saying there was no avaible space that XP could write to, needs to be partitioned and formated. Please help.

What does it say on your install CD?

Can you create a partition less than 137GB in size?Also, read:  How do I install Microsoft Windows XP?

By the way...is the bad drive still in the computer...or did you remove it?  Looks as if you left it in....based on the following comment:

Code: [Select]When I tried to run XPPro instalation it showed the full size of HD 500GB as raw avaiable space it couldn't partition or format.
That being the case...you probably need to remove the bad drive...and set the new drive as the Master and try again.  Unless I'm missing something in the original post.