Ok, I have this wierd problem on my girlfriend's computer, and I don't get what I did. I would be very happy if someone could help me figure this out.

Whenever there is some problem with XP and I want to start fresh, I just pop the disk in and it goes through the steps of preparing setup, then it reboots, then it gets to a point where it asks me if I want to use the partition or delete it and make a new one. I always delete it and start new, then you can pick if you want FAT32 or NTFS, then it goes on its merry way and installs XP anew. Well, not this time. Her computer has some older lame pirated version of XP pro, and I have XP home, so I installed it on the hard drive, so I thought. I guess I didnt notice it not ask me what partition to use, but for some reason now it has 2 versions of XP on it, because it asks me which one I want when I startup. The XP home wont even boot! And when I go to setup again, it tells me it cant delete the partition because it has setup files needed for installation. WTF!

I'm not really adept at manual reformatting and I am not sure how to install XP on a blank HD. If anyone can help me out, you would make my girlfriend very very happy to have her MySpeceYouTubeBlogChatEmail pc back and I would be very happy because she would be off of mine

Thank you very much!

Did you purchase a key to use for installation on this computer, or did a key for XP home come with the computer?

My XP home is totally legit, I bought it and it came with an installation key. Its the XP pro version that was on her pc before that had problems before the install. I think it was just a bunch of adware or maybe a virus. Anyway, that is why I wanted to install my XP on her pc, to get her legal.

Any ideeers on what to do?

I just had to ask whether your XP Home was legitimate, because we have a policy on piracy and you made it seem as if you had your same copy of Home on another PC at the same time. Sorry 'bout that, but I had to check before helping.

Download this:
Darik's Boot and Nuke (Hard Drive Disk Wipe)

Make a bootable floppy or CD and just do a once-through wipe to get rid of everything. Then retry the installation of XP.

No prob at all, I understand. I would think someone would have to be kind of naive to post looking for help involving illegal software, since this is a MS endorsed site, but I'm sure it happens!

Anyway, thanks for the help, I'm gonna give it a try. BTW, I saw in another post that you can format from the properties tab of the hard drive in Windows. I have never tried that, but how does that compare with this method? Just curious.

Thanks again for the help!

Running the Windows formatting won't work, because you're trying to delete Windows, and that's where it's getting the format instructions from. If your install disk for whatever reason isn't asking you to delete/reinstall partitions (my guess is due to the pirated copy already installed), you'll want to use bootable formatting media such as DBAN to wipe the whole drive and then install from the Home disk.