I have a Dell Dimension E512 that came with vista installed. I managed to create a dual boot system but made the XP partition too small to do much else. I would like to just start over and only have XP. I have downloaded all of the driverss I need from Dell for my machine.

I started the comp with the xp disk and was able to delete the partition that was created for the dual boot but it gave me a warning when I was going to install the xp on the c drive that both opwerating sys on the same drive mioght cause problems. I'd be fine with formating the hard dricve and starting new but how do I do it? I was hoping that it would give me the option when I used the xp startup disk but it didn't.

The hard drive is a Samsung SP2504c SCSI.

since you are removing vista the recovery partition will not be of any use for you.

reboot to the cd and when it asks what partition to install to it should have an option to remove/delete the partition. delete that partition and all other partitions untill only the single partition (size of drive) then choose that one to install to and you will be given the option to format (quick or full) choose the full option formatting as it will do a much better job. then proceed as prompted.