Richard Urban

Delete will delete the partition and the partition table entry for said
partition. Format leaves the previous partition table entry intact. If the
table entry is corrupted (it happens), and you just format - you will still
have the corrupted partition table entry , which will cause problems.

If the partition was created by using Partition magic 8 I would certainly
delete the partition and then create a new one using the Vista installer. I
always do this and have no problems. Of the many people who post here with
problems installing, I have to wonder how many are using the old partition,
which "may" not be compatible with the new iteration of the NTFS system.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

"hash" <joeblogg@spam.com> wrote in message
news:OldQYrdzHHA.5484@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hello
>
> When I select Custom (Advanced) instead of Upgrade to install Vista I then
> have to choose the partition to which to install Vista. If I need to
> delete or format the disk, I select the Drive options (advanced) option to
> do so and then continue.
>
> I'd like to know what is the difference between Delete or Format the
> entire hard disk or just a partition (Volume) c:\ drive ?
>
> hash