OEM XP install disk wipes recovery partition?

[andrewstuartallen]

Spent a few hours poking around in threads here and can't find the answers to the following (so much information to sift through!), so I hope someone doesn't mind giving a newbie a clue here....

I'm planning a clean install of XP on my x40 using an OEM XP-SP2 disk I have lying around. Will this automatically eliminate the IBM restore "partition" giving XP access to the whole hard drive capacity as if it were a new hard drive, or is there a trick to making that happen? (Is the restore stuff really in a partition?)

FWIW, this is a later x40 with the 1.4ghz Dothan.

Thanks,

Andy

Edit: Just spent some more time with the long How to Fresh Install Win XP (Step-by-Step Guide) document, which at first seemed like it didn't apply, and found where it says you can disable the predesktop area in the BIOS, which lets the XP install disk see it as a partition. If this applies to my x40, then perhaps that is my answer?

[Brad]

An OEM install should give you the option to delete a partition and then use that unallocated space. You should be able to leave the service partition as is or you could delete both partitions and have more space for your install.

So the answer is no the OEM install will not automatically eliminate the service partition.

Brad

[Sine]

Brad is right; when you're doing the install, it will show you a list of all the partitions on the machine. All you have to do is point it to C: