hard drive partition problem!?

Question

i have been trying to install windows xp on to a partition on a hard drive ,but the first drive(c:)is fat32 and when i use fdisk to try and delete it it says "cannot delete logical drive while extended drive exists"so when i try to delete the "extended drive"it says "cannot delete extended drive while logical drive exists"
i try to boot from cd (by changing boot order in bios)ti install xp but it wont start,i think thats due to the (c:) drive being a fat32 partition,but as i cannot delete it,im stumped
i cant use computer management as the drive was dual boot(win98(c)win xp(d)) and i cant boot into xp on that drive
is there 3rd party software which you can download which will partition drives ,and you can make on to a floppy(like a 98 start up disk),its only a spare machine so theres no rush but i would like to solve this as its bugging me

Answer 1

I will try to find the answer to this, but I believe you are supposed to have the ability to delete the extended drive before you partition and delete the logical drive. It should've let you.

Extended partitions are required for hard drives with more than one partition. Only *one* Extended partition is allowed per hard disk. You can't do anything with an Extended Partition, without first creating a Logical DOS drive *in* the Extended Partition .. which leads to our next point.qLogical DOS drives are created in Extended partitions. They are handy, since you (normally) can have only one Primary & one Extended partition per hard disk, giving you the ability to create more than two partitions per hard disk.

There's a known-problem with trying to create partitions [with FDISK] larger than 64GB. go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q263044/ to read about it. Microsoft has a file for you to download [if you want to create partitions larger than 64GB]. If you already have a bootable floppy disk that works for you, but merely need the updated version of FDISK for a new hard drive that is larger than 64-GB, you can download the new version of FDISK.exe from http://radified.com/Files/

The delete screen in FDISK looks like this:
1. Delete Primary DOS Partition [Delete this partition last]
2. Delete Extended DOS Partition [Delete this partition next]
3. Delete Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition [Delete these first]
4. Delete Non-DOS Partition [These can be difficult to delete with FDISK]Always delete partitions in the *reverse* order you create them.

In other words, always delete partitions like so:
First delete all Logical DOS drives [highest drive letter first]. Next delete the Extended partition. Lastly delete the Primary partition.Eric from New York City wrote to say he encountered a problem with a Windows 98 start-up disk. It gives him the error: NTLDR is missing. Press any key to restart. Pressing the proverbial "any key" does no damn good. The Windows Me boot disk from bootdisk.com allowed him to load DOS and access FDISK. But FDISK could not delete his NTFS partition. A utility called delpart.exe was required. You can download delpart.exe from either my Binaries page, or from the utilities page at bootdisk.com [listed near the bottom, scroll down to heading labeled "Partitioning"]. It's 123KB. Copy it to your boot floppy and execute it from there. Delete NTFS partitions as desired. Then reboot and create partitions with FDISK. So the combo that works to delete NTFS partitions is: delpart.exe on a WinMe boot floppy.

Answer 2

Fdisk would have trouble with larger drives, but you should be able to remove all partions in Fdisk while tricky , are there any NON Dos partitions as well, take a look at all of your logical drives.

The Windows XP CD has the option to delete all the partions as well, and then create new ones based on your selection, I've done hundreds of them.

Answer 3

I agree with Billy James on this one, if you don't understand his instructions, goto control panel, administrative tools, computer management, and click on disk management on the left, the manager should display the unpartitioned space in the lower right pane, just right click on it and set it up(make new partition or something). it should ask you things like drive letter, how big of a partition, file system, quick / slow format. I recommend a slow format since its new. Good Luck Just a side note: I think their is a 127 gb size limit on the fat32 file system, so you may have to choose ntfs for the file system for large partitions.

Answer 4

Let me explain you with an example.
You may have C: as your Logical drive.
And you may partitioned the next other part ( leaving C:) as the extended memory. With in the extended memory , you may partituioned them as 3 logical drives , say D:,E:,F: ,
While trying with the fdisk, you may need to first delete the partitions D:,E:,F: and then the extended partition . Atlast the C: ..
Good luck..

Answer 5

try this put windows 98 on drive d: the change drive c:to ntfs drive using 98 from drive d: to do it then install xp on drive : and delete windows 98 off of drive d:

Answer 6

Well kind of a mess. You need to low level format the entire hdd.
You could find a software for this either on the hdd producer's website or atthe link below.

Answer 7

i think the problem u are facing is that u kept c: active and that can't be deleted using fdisk.
and secondly u can't deleted the whole logical drive

Answer 8

Partition Magic http://www.symantecstore.com/dr/sat1/ec_MAIN.Entry17c?CID=219398&PN=5&SP=10007&SID=49997&PID=705807&API1=65&API2=GOOGLE&API3=partition_magic_exa&API4=Google&API5=www.google.com&CUR=840&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=219398

Answer 9

partiton magic might help with this one