Installing windows xp all over?

[vemone]

Hi, I have a 80 gig harddrive that was partitioned into three 3.

The OS was giving me problems and I decided to delete it.

This is what I did.

I loaded a bootdisk, then I fdisk.
I deleted all the partitions.
I formatted c:
Then I try to go to Fdisk to display the drives.
But I seen that the drive had only 10mb.
Then I loaded Partition Magic and I noticed it was
saying that the drive has 77gigs. But on fdisk it shows the
primary dos partition with only 10mb.

The question is .

How can I recover all the space lost and make it into one drive that I can see the 80 gigs on fdisk to install windows xp clean.

Please help im very desperate.
1 hour ago - 3 days left to answer.
Additional Details
18 minutes ago

When I pop windows It stays frozen..
Press Any Key To Boot From CD..

I have another version of windows and Its says Operating System Missing

[gerbil]

There is no need to use Fdisk. When you install Windows, Setup will present you with a quite adequate partition manager. Use it to create the system partition of the size you wish [the whole disk if you so wish, although tht is not necessarily the best thing...]. Afterward use Windows disk management console to build any other partitions you wish.
There is no need to use Partition Magic in this process. Setup will do a [quick] format of the partition and build the MBR and file tables, which is what was done when you formatted with Fdisk.
OS missing? Yep, when you insert the cd it finds a MBR but no OS, hence that message. Force Setup to use your already created partition or let it make a fresh one.

[bobbyraw]

once you get to the partition screen in windows setup you can delete all the partition that are shown and then you will have one large partition. then format it it the standard way do not use the quick format..

[gerbil]

Quick format just skips the disc surface scan.. it does everything else the full format does.

[vemone]

Im having a problem.. When I boot the cd from the begining. Its say

"Press any key to boot from the cd"

I see the lights from the HD and CDRom but it stop after 10 secs.. and stays stuck on

"Press any key to boot from the cd"

Then I try to access /I386/winnt.exe and I see flashing for about 10 secs and I get
"Invalid Media Type Reading Drive C"

Any more suggestions?

Im about to slam this HD...lol

[gerbil]

Sounds like after you ran the fdisk command your format c: /s command did not run properly? 'Course, it may be hd slamming time too...

[vemone]

I did the fdisk then formated the drive....

What should I do?

[vemone]

Also when I type dir inside C:

I get this error.

Invalid media type reading drive c

?????

Thanks

[gerbil]

mmm, I guess I'd try fdisk /mbr again, followed by format c: /sys..
Thinking about it a bit more, because you got Partition Magice to recognise the drive and that partition why not use it to create a new, active partition and then see if Windows Setup can recognise that. Then tell Setup to remove all partitions and create a new partition...?

[jbennet]

dot use fdisk!

use the partitioner in the NT installer, it can handle large drives properley

[vemone]

Afterbreaking night all night long.. Im back up. I will try everything again..

Why is it showing like if I only have 10mb on fdisk can anyone explain?

Another thing... If I use partition magic.. What should I set the drive has?
Fat32 or NTSF?

Thanks guys

[vemone]

Update I just did on comman prompt....

fdisk /mbr (nothing showed up)
Followed by
format c:
and it saying formatting 10.78mb...

Weird ... lets see what happens

[vemone]

Update: Just formatted the drive.
When try to run the Win XP installation CD...

Just stays stuck on
Press any key to boot fom CD....

Any help plz?

[vemone]

Update: When I try to run on ms dos
I386/WINNT.EXE

I get CDR101: NOT READY READING DRIVE D
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?

[jbennet]

why use dos?

install from CD

[gerbil]

So now you have a D: as well as a c:....
Did you make the D: with Partition Magic? Anyway, the format command you want is..
format c: /sys -this will mark the partition as active.
I always thought the f in fdisk didn really stand for format.

[vemone]

I ended up buying a new drive...

Thanks for the help guys...

I gave up.

[gerbil]

Okay, they do die, sometimes at the most interesting times....

[caperjack]

I ended up buying a new drive...

Thanks for the help guys...

I gave up.

send me the old one and i'll fix it ,and send it back to you .

[bobbyraw]

but you want to get the disk to scan so that errors can be detected and marked so the the operating system is not installed to a bad sector that you have another problem to deal with

Quick format just skips the disc surface scan.. it does everything else the full format does.