hard drives screwed up

[eyeless41]

my gateway notebook is split into 2 drives (C and (D C: is abpout 30GB and is supposed to be the main drive D: is about 7GB and is used for recovery purposes. recently i tried upgrading my copy of windows xp to my friends pro edition but it didnt work so i tried returning my notebook to its factory state using the recovery cd supplied. it wouldnt install windows properly and both drives have been swapped and it is trying to install windows to the 7GB one (it saying that C: is D: and visa) also i cant press F11 on boot up witch was supposed to run recovery. does anybody kno how I can get the drives assigned to the right letter and completly format then install the windows that came with my laptop? many thanx!!

 

[Nick]

cant you completely format the drive as i believe it is two drives split into two partitions,

 

[eyeless41]

cant you completely format the drive as i believe it is two drives split into two partitions,

maybe but i dont know how, if you could tell me how that would be great thanks!

 

[Nick]

so you put in your repair disk, then you come to a screen which shows u ur partitions, ok, thinking about it they may be permanently split into those two partitions you listed thats not a problem, format them both then install XP on the bigger one,

 

[eyeless41]

so you put in your repair disk, then you come to a screen which shows u ur partitions, ok, thinking about it they may be permanently split into those two partitions you listed thats not a problem, format them both then install XP on the bigger one,

problem is the recovery cd does not let me choose witch drive i install it on, i think it automaticly does it on C: with is now the smaller one! the cd with xp pro lets me choose but it simply wont work right with my notebook, i need to try to get the version that came with it to work

 

[Nick]

i see, ok heres a thought, download GParted -- Download, burn that to a disk with an iso burner, pop it into your laptop and format the drives, it should sort them out (replacing C with D and vice verser) then shut down and try ur recovery disk again

 

[eyeless41]

i see, ok heres a thought, download GParted -- Download, burn that to a disk with an iso burner, pop it into your laptop and format the drives, it should sort them out (replacing C with D and vice verser) then shut down and try ur recovery disk again

thank you my friend, ill try that when i get home as im at my grandparents since it the holiday.

 

[Nick]

ok, do you live in the UK or is it holiday in the US or wherever you live?

 

[eyeless41]

ok, do you live in the UK or is it holiday in the US or wherever you live?

yea i live in the US it is labor day here, but uh it looks like there is 2 different files a bz2 and a gz to i get one or both? i have the right tools to extract either one

 

[eyeless41]

how do i format the drive that windows is installed on? i cant do it through "my computer"