OS installation / Hard disk partitioning advice needed....

[generator_g1]

A cousin of mine asked for help in installing XP in his Acer netbook. I already made a bootable XP installer in my USB drive and set up the boot sequence to boot from USB. The installation program started normally but when it came time to start checking the drives, an error message comes up saying that the D drive is corrupted and setup could not continue. The hard disk has been split into 2 partitions (C & D).

I put the hard disk in an enclosure and I could see both the C & D drive and access the stuff in there normally.

I was thinking of deleting the D partition first and changing the hard disk back into 1 partition. But unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any good HD partitioning programs (preferably freeware). Can anybody suggest a good program to do this?

This is a nuke & pave operation so there is no need for any backups.

Any assistance is appreciated....

[General Zod]

Shouldn't you get an option to delete the partitions when you reinstall the OS?

[generator_g1]

Shouldn't you get an option to delete the partitions when you reinstall the OS?

The error message pops up before the option to delete the partitions is shown.

[Luke Starkiller]

Do you have a separate WinXP license key you are using or are you going to be using the one on the COA that came with the netbook?

I've run into issues with Acers in particular where you won't be able to activate Windows after it is installed if you are using the Acer Key and an OEM XP disk. The only solution that Microsoft or Acer offer is to use the onboard recovery partition (assuming it is still there and accessible on boot) or to buy recovery disks from Acer.

[Dominus Atheos]

Um... You already took the hard drive out and hooked it up to another computer, can't you just do it that way?
Spoiler

You sig is wrong. "Remember" doesn't need to have a comma, and "cherish them" should have a semicolon instead of a comma; otherwise it's a run-on sentence.

[Dave]

As I recall, "disk corrupted" warnings spell BAD THINGS for the hard drive, as it can be a serious sign that the hard drive is failing.

However, it could be that the Windows partition manager is being stupid. If it were me, my next step might be either:
a) Obtain a copy of Darik's Boot And Nuke and have that run for a few minutes so that it trashes the partition table (or let it run full cycle if you want to be sure.)

Be extra careful not to nuke your own drive.

After that, try running the Windows installer again -- since the partition table is trashed, the installer should say "Oh, there's nothing here! Would you like to format the whole drive?"

b) Assuming the computer you are using has internet access, download the latest version of Ubuntu, fire up the LiveCD, and download their partition editor. (I can walk you through this.)

[Netko]

Why?

If he already has the drive in an enclosure, why not simply delete the partitions with Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management. It does the same thing without any additional software. You've linked to a tool used for wiping disks before disposal - way way overkill and more importantly totally unnecessary in this case and downloading and burning a live CD to get a partition editor when Windows comes with a perfectly serviceable one for this purpose is a bit daft. Reminds me of solutions in this vein.

If he's downloading anything, it should be SeaTools to check if the drive's gone bad. Its simply good housekeeping to check a drive with SeaTools or a similar tool on a wipe and reinstall since disks go bad most often among regular components. Doubly so when you're getting errors related to them.