[janmejay]

Hello All,
I have a moderate experience in installation but not great. Here is what is happening.
Configuration -
RAM - 1.25 GB, Hard drive - 40 GB, Machine became slow so I re-installed XP from the window. Once installation completed, noticed C:\ was already around ~35 GB. Installed updates including Service pack 3 and IE8, got empty space 2400 MB.

Thinking that it did NOT clearly deleted partitions, tried to reinstall and at the place where it shows partitions, pressed "D" - DELETE to delete partitions. It gave me message - "Set up is unable to perform the requested operation on selected partition. This partition contains temporary set up files that are required to complete installation."

Went to BIOS and changed the boot sequence to "Boot from CD" however it was always rebooting from hard-drive howsoever I tried and keeps giving me same error message as above. Temporarily, disabled "boot from hard drive" using enable/disable and only kept one option "Boot from CD-ROM" and then while trying to reboot it gave message - "to retry boot press F1, F2 to set up". Pressing F1, same error message, pressing F2 takes to set up but it does not go beyond this step. Again, enabled the sequence to "boot from hard-drive" and kept it as #2 it booted from hard-drive, completed installation and left the space ~2300 MB.

What to do now? What is going wrong? PLEASE HELP.

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Are you trying to reinstall from within Windows?

[skifxr]

Are you trying to reinstall from within Windows?

[janmejay]

No, I am not! but that is what is happening actually. And I don't know how to delete the partition COMPLETELY and do a CLEAN reinstall.
Because every time I try to boot from CD, it just doesn't take it and I double checked, bootable CD's are good because whenever it tries fresh install, it copies all the files and keeps it in temp and it does not complain about CD either.

[rshaffer61]

Just a question... Is the partition you are trying to delete the main partition or is it by chance a recovery partition?

[janmejay]

Thanks Skifxr, thanks rshaffer61 for your replies.

It's main partition and I have only ONE. When I reach a stage where it shows me to delete partition - I see 2 lines as under

C:\Windows 38450 MB
Unused empty space - 8 MB
So, when I choose first [C:\Windows 38450 MB] and hit 'D' (DELETE), on next screen it says -
Set up is unable to perform the requested operation on selected partition. This partition contains temporary set up files that are required to complete installation."

[rshaffer61]

Format it first and then try deleting it.

[janmejay]

So how to do it? Would you please outline steps at least higher level. I am relatively newbie hence the request.

[janmejay]

Thanks again. What option would allow to format it? Every time I use CD, it takes me to fresh reinstall windows and it does the same thing.
I don't recall having seen "FORMAT" option anywhere during these steps hence thought to ask you.

[rshaffer61]

Instead of deleting the partition it should ask you if you want keep the existing windows or replace it. Try replacing it. We can always delete it later once windows is installed again. Take a look at the below instructions as this might help.


Parallel Installation of Windows XP

Boot to the Windows XP installation cd by pressing a key when the "Press any key to boot from cd" prompt appears at the top of the screen.

• At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press Enter to set up Windows XP.
• Accept the License Agreement by pressing F8
• With your current installation selected in the box, press Esc
• Select C: Partition1 [NTFS] in the box and press Enter
• To continue setup using this partition, press C
• Now you should see formatting options...choose the last one, Leave the current file system intact (no changes), and press Enter
• To use a different folder, press Esc
• Name the folder WINDOWS0 (just type a 0 (zero)) and press Enter

The Windows installation should begin. This will install Windows to a new folder, leaving your data intact. Any programs installed on the old directory will have to be reinstalled to the new one. Device drivers will also have to be installed for all the hardware to work as it should.

The data will be located in the Documents and Settings folder (C:\Documents and Settings) under your old user account name...so when you set up the new installation, give yourself a slightly different user account name.