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On a number of occasions, I had a need to install Windows XP onto a computer that had Windows 2000 or a previous installation of Windows XP. I've had a difficult time doing a clean install (an install onto a blank—clean—hard drive) because I've had problems getting rid of the existing NTFS partition. I finally figured out the trick (or at least a trick that worked for me).
The key is to create the appropriate Windows XP boot disk before attempting to install Windows XP, and then to boot off the boot disk set. Doing this doesn't lock the existing partition by putting temporary setup files into it the way an installation without the boot disks would do. You can download the appropriate boot disk creation software from the following links:
Although I have only tried this once, I expect that this is the key to doing a clean install of Windows XP on any NTFS file system. Using a boot disk uses a RamDrive and doesn't copy the setup files to the primary partition used by the operating system and allows the user to erase the existing partition and create a new one (which also formats the hard drive).