Windows XP installed on C: drive, nothing on D: - how can D: be a system partition?

Windows XP installed on C: drive, nothing on D: - how can D: be a system partition? I reinstalled Windows XP on a friend's computer. It was nuked with viruses and malware, so I booted with a Ubuntu live CD and used GParted to make a new partition (recovery), move all of their files onto the partition, and erase the primary.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 367

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Guest [Entry]

I would suggest using your LiveCD again to remove the partition if it is indeed empty. Then use Windows to recreate it as needed.

Guest [Entry]

"How can I safely remove it (Windows won't let from the GUI) without losing access to the XP install, so I can recovery the space by growing the C partition.

If you used a Linux Live-CD to do your work, then you may already know how Linux sees delineates partitions.

If there is one SATA hard drive with two partitions, Linux would show them as follows:

/dev/sda1 which is the first partition, probably C: under Windows
/dev/sda2 which is the second partition, probably D: under Windows

The thing to do would be to completely wipe the virus-ridden partition and then let a partition table editor do its job. I would wipe the hard drive using dd.

I would boot my PLD Rescue CD and key in the command:

dd if=/dev/urandom | pipemeter | dd of=/dev/sda2 && dd if=/dev/zero | pipemeter | dd of=/dev/sda2

This would fill the second partition on the hard drive with random data, and then go back and zero it all out. You don't have to fill the partition with random data, and skipping this step saves time. It's up to your personal preference.

If you just want to zero the second partition, use the following command:

dd if=/dev/zero | pipemeter | dd of=/dev/sda2

And again, just let the partition table editing tool do its own work.

Good luck!"