Recently I had to reformat my 40GB hard drive. Before the reformat, I only had a C: Drive. Here is my problem step by step as best as I can remember it.
- I tried to reinstall Windows XP Home edition, and I received a message that I did not have enough space to install.
- I formatted C:, but it took a matter of like 2 seconds to reformat.
- In DOS mode, I rand FDISK to find out C: was only 7MB. I was informed I would need to partition the 40GB drive.
- I did so, finally ending up with drive 1 (I don't know what to label this as during this course of action, it showed no label.) with 40GB and drive C: with 32GB available.
- I formatted C: and installed Windows XP Home.
- Looking at My Computer, it showed I had an ANDERSON C: Drive (ANDERSON is the label I gave it) and a Local Disk D: Drive. When Windows installed, it installed to the D: drive. C: drive was completely empty.
- After upgrading to SP2, I rebooted. I got an error that said "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM."
- I booted into Repair Console mode but got lost in what to do, so I decided to just install Windows XP over again OVER the corrupted install.
- When the install was finished, I came to a screen asking me which OS I wanted to boot up. It showed me 3 options.
1. Windows XP (the one I had just installed)
2. 1 (Where this came from I have no idea, but it's corrupt the same as the first install)
3. Windows XP (the corrupted system file install)
- Upon booting up the freshest install, I found out that the newest install installed to C:. Now I have 1 XP on D:, one on C: and one OS labeled as "1" that only seems to exist upon booting up.
Drive C: is FAT32 (no clue how this happened or what FAT32 means)
Drive D: is NTFS (no clues how this happened or what NTFS means)
My questions are:
A) How do I revert my hard drive back to whatever the default is supposed to be, since I show 2 hard drives, I only want C:, and I want it to be the default, not only 7MB large. (Please provide step by step instructions for this, as I have no idea what to do. I know it has to do with FDISK and partitioning or something?
B) How do I remove the D: drive and the D: drive Windows XP Installation, so that when I boot up, it just boots into Windows XP from the C: drive by default instead of giving me different OS options?
C) Does anyone know where "1" came from?
D) (if applicable) If I can't undo this partition thing, then how do I remove the XP install on the D: drive.
Again, please provide step by step instructions as to what I need to do because when it comes to running the repair or recovery console, or dos mode, I have no clue what I am doing.
If I have to reformat again, I will. I don't mind as these installs are less than 24 hours old.
In case anyone needs the info, I have Compaq Presario S5000NX and I am using Windows XP Home (without SP2.)
Thanks in advance.
- I tried to reinstall Windows XP Home edition, and I received a message that I did not have enough space to install.
- I formatted C:, but it took a matter of like 2 seconds to reformat.
- In DOS mode, I rand FDISK to find out C: was only 7MB. I was informed I would need to partition the 40GB drive.
- I did so, finally ending up with drive 1 (I don't know what to label this as during this course of action, it showed no label.) with 40GB and drive C: with 32GB available.
- I formatted C: and installed Windows XP Home.
- Looking at My Computer, it showed I had an ANDERSON C: Drive (ANDERSON is the label I gave it) and a Local Disk D: Drive. When Windows installed, it installed to the D: drive. C: drive was completely empty.
- After upgrading to SP2, I rebooted. I got an error that said "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM."
- I booted into Repair Console mode but got lost in what to do, so I decided to just install Windows XP over again OVER the corrupted install.
- When the install was finished, I came to a screen asking me which OS I wanted to boot up. It showed me 3 options.
1. Windows XP (the one I had just installed)
2. 1 (Where this came from I have no idea, but it's corrupt the same as the first install)
3. Windows XP (the corrupted system file install)
- Upon booting up the freshest install, I found out that the newest install installed to C:. Now I have 1 XP on D:, one on C: and one OS labeled as "1" that only seems to exist upon booting up.
Drive C: is FAT32 (no clue how this happened or what FAT32 means)
Drive D: is NTFS (no clues how this happened or what NTFS means)
My questions are:
A) How do I revert my hard drive back to whatever the default is supposed to be, since I show 2 hard drives, I only want C:, and I want it to be the default, not only 7MB large. (Please provide step by step instructions for this, as I have no idea what to do. I know it has to do with FDISK and partitioning or something?
B) How do I remove the D: drive and the D: drive Windows XP Installation, so that when I boot up, it just boots into Windows XP from the C: drive by default instead of giving me different OS options?
C) Does anyone know where "1" came from?
D) (if applicable) If I can't undo this partition thing, then how do I remove the XP install on the D: drive.
Again, please provide step by step instructions as to what I need to do because when it comes to running the repair or recovery console, or dos mode, I have no clue what I am doing.
If I have to reformat again, I will. I don't mind as these installs are less than 24 hours old.
In case anyone needs the info, I have Compaq Presario S5000NX and I am using Windows XP Home (without SP2.)
Thanks in advance.
