Partioned HDD for XP which now reports an error on partitioning

[silver threads]

This is my second posting and I hope some kind and patient person can explain the error XP Home has found when installing it on my newly partitioned 40 gig HDD FAT 32. I reformatted from Win 98SE, ran fdisk and partioned my Hdd and then formatted each drive in turn, making C drive active to install XP. I seem to have hit an error somewhere but I do not know what it is or how to rectify it. The following details might help:

- Format and fdisk shows HDD size as 39260Mb
- Partioned C: as 35% gives 13741Mb (made active)
- Partioned D: as 65% gives 25519Mb
but
- XP reports HDD as 39261Mb
- XP reports C: drive as 13743Mb (13729 free)
- XP reports D: drive as 25517Mb (25504 free)

XP selected C: drive to setup. The other choices on the screen were:
To create a partition on the unpartitioned space press C
To delete the selected partition press D

I selected the highlighted C drive for setup and got this message "An error occurred while setup was updating partition information on: 39261Mb Disk0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on Atapi [MBR]
Setup cannot continue. To quit setup press F3.

Can anyone tell me what the "error" means?

My other queries are: why is there a difference on the 2 HDD reports, what does XP mean by "free space" in the above context? Have I made a mistake in the partitioning or does XP create its own partitions? Also what is meant by "create a partition in the unpartitioned space" I do not know where the unpartioned space might be as I believed I had used it all.

I would appreciate any help available. Many thanks

 

[genericuser100]

sounds like a currupted mbr
if you arent opposed to losing the info..i would delete th partitian on c and recreate a new one.
if you are oposed to data lose.. then you can try a fdisk /mbr from a command prompt.. either from a boot disk or recover console on the cd.

the differenc in fee space i belive is caused by your MFT (master file table)

 

[silver threads]

Partitioned hdd on xp now reports an error

Many thanks for your reply. I tried a few times, then gave up and returned to Win 98SE as the computer was needed. I have noted what you suggested about the corrupted MBR and reformat and will try to get XP up and running, maybe without partitioning as a last resort, although I would prefer to keep the OS separate.

Thank you once again for your helpful advice.

Silver threads

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I don't think it's because of a corrupted MBR, more like the setup applications just treat the disk differently. Different Windows versions aren't always compatible with each other, not to mention other OSes.