Deleted partition?

[Chrisaschaeffer]

I need some help. I was working on a laptop for a friend of mine and it was way old and needed lots of work. I am pretty far into a restoration but when I went to load XP in it it claims not to have enough memory due to a partition. So I checked a website on how to properly remove it. I stress the word proper ~L~.
Okay so heres the story. When i start the computer it tells me there is an invalid partition table. Setup cannot continue. So I put in a boot disk and it takes me to A:>prompt.....any ideas on what to do?

 

[harrishcris]

Get a new laptop!

 

[TheMajor]

type "fdisk", to delete and create new partitions. You will loose all data from deleted partitions..

 

[Chrisaschaeffer]

~L~ I thought this was a tech forum?? Seriously....

 

[ShoobieRat]

LOL!!!

This ain't a tech forum...It's a caroseen-infused debate-house filled with beurocratic spam.

Anyway, you kinda goofed when you deleted that partition. Most likely, the virtual-memory page-file was set in a way that prevented it from expanding as it wanted to because you had a partition in the way. The solution would have most likely been to decrese the page-file limits so it would only grow so huge.

Anyway, yer kinda screwed right now. Try TheMajor's solution and see what's up with your partitions (if it can see them correctly, now...)

If that doesn't help, you can either give up and reformat, or you can slave the drive to another HDD and try to recover the files, then reformat.

Other than that, sorry...There's probably something else you can do, but I'm fat from lunch and falling asleep as it is...

 

[Chrisaschaeffer]

I have no qualms about a total redo. But it wont let me format, Anyone wanna talk me through a low level and just start from scratch? I have XP disk, I can just reload from there.

 

[Win2kpatcher]

What happens when you try to delete the partition using the WinXp disc? How far does the install get? Give us some details...you boot from the xp cd..then blue screen comes on loading all the crap...does it even do that?

 

[Chrisaschaeffer]

No, Now when I try to start it normally it goes to a dos screen saying invalid partition table, setup cannot continue. I have a boot disk, when I load that it takes me to an a prompt. I have tried to type fdisk but it tells my that is a bad command.

 

[The Rage]

Are you using a Win98 boot disk? If fdisk is a bad command try another boot disk.

http://www.bootdisk.com/

 

[Chrisaschaeffer]

I went there and tried to make a few other boot disks, it keeps telling me they are all non system disks....