Install problem with Sarge

["shrevie@ntnation.com" <shrevie@ntnation.com>]

I'm installing Sarge on a IBM Thinkpad X31 with a USB CDROM. I can make 
it to the point where its time to partition disks, and then I run into 
trouble -- basically, nothing happens when I select "Partition Disks" 
from the menu.

Now the system is as-is from IBM, so that means it has Windows XP 
partitions on it and the hard disk has already been partitioned.

Could the problem be that I have to somehow kill those partitions first? 
Or do I do that inside the install (drop to a shell and do it, perhaps?)

Any help would be appreciated on this ... all of the How-tos that I can 
find via Google and Linux-laptops.net and tuxmobil.com all basically 
talk about installing Debian via TFTP and PXE, and I would really not 
like to go that process....

Moe

test524@comcast.net wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm a relatively new user who has been learning Linux and Debian by experimenting with a test machine I've set up. Like many newbies, I've gone in over my head--installing backports, trying my hand at compiling my own kernel, etc.
>
> I've now hosed things a bit in a couple of places, and I'd like to start afresh with a perfectly clean woody installation--wiping out all of my config files, reinstalling all packages from stable debs. 
>
> Is there a good way to do this, short of reinstalling from scratch?
>
> In short, what I want to do is "apt-get make-debian-look-the-way-it-did-right-after-I-finished-installing" or something similar.
>
> Is such a magic bullet possible, or should I just go ahead and reinstall? (This is a test machine, so there's nothing too critical on it--just a few 10s of gigs of MP3 files I'd have to reload.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charles.