I'm not sure if I'll be describing this right, but here goes. I have an old 850mhz compaq PC that I want to set up for my two young children to use, but in the process of updating drivers, etc, I was warned that I was dangerously low on disc space. Granted, its only got a 20gb hard drive, but there should have been plenty of space. Come to find out that at some POINT it was upgraded to Windows XP from WHATEVER version it was running previously, and instead of overriding the previous installation, it installed it on a separate 3gb partition, which is now completely FULL. Is there any way to comepletely blank out or reformat the hard drive and start over? I've got an XP pro disc so reinstalling windows isn't a problem, I just want to know how I can recombine the two partitions so it reads as a single 20gb drive, instead of the way it is now.The best method since a re-install is not a problem would be to use FDisk and delete all existing partitions...then PREPARE the drive again with FDisk using 100% of the available space for one active partition.

Travel Here for our FDisk simulation that will show you exactly what steps to take.

DLoad and create a WinME bootdisk from bootdisk.com create the floppy and then boot to it and proceed.

Once finished remove the floppy, put your XP CD in and re-boot and it should take you to the installation menu...What's the purpose of creating the WinME boot disc? Can't I just start the XP install once I've deleted the partitions? Or is it just easier to start the install from the ME boot?coulnd he also use a partition manager from the ultimatebootcd or somewhere to just extend his windows partition?

not sure if i am suposed to link you to this sort of thing, no guarantees, but after you get any other responses try this:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

I was looking at the sectino halfway down the page, under partition tools. Partition resizer looks good, but others from that section can serve the same function.

again, wait for another response before trying this... one of them may have done it before and can give adviceQuote from: roccenstein on May 22, 2007, 03:14:40 PM

What's the purpose of creating the WinME boot disc? Can't I just start the XP install once I've deleted the partitions? Or is it just easier to start the install from the ME boot?