Partition Letters

Clarifications

Boot the computer with the 2000/XP CD in the drive and allow setup to begin. When the screen appears showing the existing partitions and unpartitioned space available on the computer you should see a drive listed in the lower portion of the screen. Now you'll see all the partitions listed that are currently on the drive. To delete all the existing partitions hit the 'D' key followed by the 'L' key. The screen instructions will be visible to guide you through the process.

Once all the existing partitions are deleted the display will show the total unpartitioned disk space.
If you only want one partition then hit enter and the entire disk space will be allocated to a single partition and you'll be taken to a screen where you select a file system.

If you want to create one partition of a specific size or several different partitions then do not hit the Enter key. Instead, hit the 'C' key to create a partition. Hit 'Backspace' until the cursor moves to the first digit location. Enter the size of the first partition to be created. Repeat the create partition process as many times as you want until either the desired number of partitions has been created or all available drive space is allocated to partitions.

Once all the partitions have been created, use the 'Up' arrow key to select the C drive partition and press the 'Enter' key to install XP to the partition. It's necessary to choose a file system and format the partition before the installation can proceed.

Keep us informed as to your progress if you require further assistance.

If you think that any of the posts that have been made by all TR Members, have solved or contributed to solving the problem, please Mark them as Helpful so that others may benefit from the outcome. ;)

Both DOS and the Windows Installer will ALWAYS designate the primary DOS partition on the first hard drive as drive C:. Further, as you can only boot from the primary partition, if the first physical drive has no primary partition and the second physical drive does have a primary partition, you can end up with D: or a higher letter as the boot drive.

There are no options or ways to change that. Other than by using a partition manager such as Partition Magic to change which partition is the primary DOS partition and which is the extended DOS partition with a logical drive. Of course, even with a partition manager, you might loose your data, so you MUST back up your files first.

So:
Back up your files.
(if needed, either install the drive in another computer or in a USB drive enclosure.

Delete the logical drive(s).
Delete the extended partition.
Delete the primary partition.

Start over:
Create the Primary DOS partition first.
Install XP.

Create the extended partition in disk manager.
Create and format your logical drive(s) in the extended partition.
Restore your files from the backup.

Chas

Thank you all for your answers, you have been very helpful. I found a friend who allowed me borrow some space on his hard drive. After copying my data, I did as I was told and it worked. THANKS MUCH!!