Formatting C drive on Xp and partitioning

[Coligeon]

Ok, I'm new to XP so please forgive me. Anyway, i got XP home today and have been messing around frantically with it. I wanted to partition to hard drive in a 2.5 GB for Windows and the rest for Programs and such. Since there is no Fdisk I tried using the thing that pops up when you start the XP installation but after it got done installing everything I ened up with my small 2.5 GB partition and none of my other 37.5 GB. So now I have been trying to start over and can't figure out how to partition under XP. It's driving me crazy. I'm also getting concerned with all it's cd key protection and such. Please help me, new to XP, help greatly appreciated. Oh and also, I ran a Windows 98 boot disk and ran Fdisk and made my partitions, but now when I stick in the Cd to reinstall XP it says "missing operating system." I am so stuck, please help me.

 

[Coligeon]

Oh, and when I was in fdisk I deleted the partition that I orginally had (2.5 GB). Like I said above, I can't get it to recognize my XP anymore all it says when I boot is "missing operating system." Help me...

 

[Apatewnas]

I suppose u know how to boot from your XP CD... do that and when u get to the screen saying 'choose the partition to install windows xp on' start playing. Delete any old partitions. Create the 2.5 gig partition u want and create another as well (37,5 gigs) for your programs. Just read the info on the sceen no big deal. After that select to install XP on the 2.5 gig partition. Feel free to play as much as you can with this procedure until you understand the way it works. If you do something wrong delete the partitions and start over.

 

[Coligeon]

Actually, no I don't know the cd boot thing. All it says when I put the cd in is "missing operating system." I was trying to do it and looking through the bios but no dice. Sorry, I'm barely in the moderate range with this stuff. Thank you for your patience.

 

[nihil]

make sure in your bios you enable booting from the cdrom. that sounds like the problem.

 

[Coligeon]

I enabled the boot form cd rom thingy but it still won't pick up the Windows cd. It says something like "attempting to boot with cd rom support...missing operating system." So the error still comes up. Please help, don't know what to do.

 

[dOrKuS]

As long as you have the correct boot sequence set in the bios, it should prompt you to "press any key to boot from cd.....", at which point you would press a key. Make sure your cd-rom drive is set to boot before the c:

Good luck,
Brian

 

[Elvis2]

I dunno how big your drive is but I would urge you to think about partitioning a larger C drive for XP especially if you plan on using system restore. I installed all my programs/mp3's/games to different partitions, leaving only the o/s on C and it's still over 3 gig on a total of 10 gig worth of software.