Cant see partition of windows 7 in xp

[plonk_13]

HI Team,

I got a acer 4736z laptop from my friend along with 2 recovery disks of XP. The laptop had windows 7 currently and is giving starting trouble.
I wanted to revert back to XP.

When I tried installing the XP from DVD1, it properly started loading the file, opened a eRecovery Management tool, gave an option to select the language, notified me that full installation will remove all my personal files and docs and asked me to press "Next"
After that I can see File Copy screen but it aborted and gave error- "Not enough disk space to copy tempoary installation files" and drive ejected causing Restart.

Then I realized it had showed me a Restore Destination Screen some where after prompting me for Language which said "Acer and partition size as 0.1 GB".

Question1: Is it that it is trying to install XP to that small mem location and hence giving error. If yes how to change it.
Question2: SOme one told me I should be able to see all the 4 partitions from Windows7 and should be able to guide the tool to install XP to anyone of them, but alas I could not spot any partition/neither did the tool asked/shown me.
Question3: I tried to use f10 option w/o using the DVD(sorry I tried it last instead of in the beginning) I am getting BootMgr Missing error asking me to restart. Tried so many times by keep pressing F8( to enter safe mode), but no success.

Let me know, if there is something I can try w/o giving it to service center.

Any help/clue will be highly appreciated.

Cheers
PLONK

 

[blackmancer]

Did this laptop come from the factory with XP or 7? Are those XP discs from another laptop? Do you have access to a regular XP install disc? I don't understand why you should have 4 partitions from win7, should be only 2 at most. Can you remove the drive and hook it up to a desktop machine?

 

[plonk_13]

Did this laptop come from the factory with XP or 7? Are those XP discs from another laptop? Do you have access to a regular XP install disc? I don't understand why you should have 4 partitions from win7, should be only 2 at most. Can you remove the drive and hook it up to a desktop machine?

Hi blackmancer,

Many thanks for your time and reply.

*This laptop came originally with XP.
* So those XP disks are originally from the same laptop.
* No access to installation disks other than these 2 recovery Disks and 1 Drivers disk.
* My friend installed win 7 and manually created partitioning.
* I will have to look for someone with desktop. cannot try this option immediately.

Cheers.

 

[Sam234]

Some recovery routines are badly written, they may expect the original partitions to exist, failing badly if they don't. That can occur even if you select to delete all existing partitions at the start of the process.