there are files on the harddrive from the old windows you have to find out which ones are from the old windows and delete them

quote!!-i did a fresh install of xp home.at that time i had 21 gigs free space on a 40 gig hard drive after the install i have 14.9

Trying to figure out if you did a clean install how you had 21 gigs free on a 40 gig hd.winxp pro[what i use ] clean install is only 1.5 gig .

Look you just didnt delete the other partitions thats all. Start over again and hit D then enter to delete all the other partitions go over them twice for extra comfort. It will say [Fresh(New)]space partiton[39004 mb] left on the drive then install.

thanks for the reply. big b affleck. iam a newbie so if you could spell in out for me a little more. like at what point do i hit d to clear the other partitions.and again thaks for the speedy reply

No problem my russian friend. After you put the WINDOWS cd-ROM in and rebootyouy will get a promt to hit any KEY to boot from CD-ROM ........Hit any key from there.After that you will get a prompt from windows saying accept the following agreements hit F8.So hit F8 and you will get another prompt by windows to install or repair hit ESCAPE (I think ) to install a fresh addition of XP.After that you will be asked if you want to delete older partitions hit D then ENTER to delete the partitions. Use the up & down arrow key to cycle through all the partitions and delete all of them.
Print this out even though the windows XP install gives you step by step instructions.
And like they say in RUSSIA

thank for spelling it out for me big b affleck you know your shit. like they say in america. thanks dude