Formatting problem

Hi,

A friend of mine want's to format his XP computer and reinstall everything. But he always gets following error "this partition contains temporary set-up files that are required to complete the set-up." Cause off this he can't reinstall Windows XP

He has three drives. C,D and E. His C drive exists out of two parts. One where he keeps the windows XP operating system and the other part for his music files.

I don't know what the reason for this error might be. Does someone have an idea? Cause I don't know where to look.

Thx.

This occurs if you boot up into XP and then run the installation wizard. The wizard asks you to upgrade or do a clean install. The wizard puts setup files on to the partion you are on so you can not do a fresh install by using the wizard.

The way around this is to ensure you boot from the CD, you may need to enter the bios to change the boot device. When you boot from the CD you can then delete - create - format partions, and install windows from scratch.

I only use the wizard for upgrades never for rebuilds.
I hope this helps

I concur with Thorpe.

I would add however once you boot to the CD and you get to the point where you can create or delete partitions, I would do just that, delete the partition that Windows will install on, then recreate the partition, this will ensure that partition has been cleaned up and straitened up.

Good Luck.

Thx,

I went over to my friend and tried to work without the wizard and it worked. Thx for the advice Jack and thorpe. Problem solved

Greets
Dreamer

Your welcome Dreamer, glad it worked and thanks for the update.

hi! i tried setting the bios to boot off teh cd rom but i still get two choice to pick which are windows xp or the windows set up from cdrom. It still won't let me delete the partition. please help me