XP Re-Install - HELP?

Hey everyone

So I've got this little problem with my new build. I told you guys about 23 days ago that the dell xp pro cd I had worked on my computer. It did - but it wouldn't let me type the code in, so it was only a free trial. Now, I'm sitting here, and its telling me it is going to shut me out in 7 days if I don't validate my copy of xp. So I have to do something. I need help though - with partitions, and with the re-install, as I've only done it once before, and on a dell. I don't mind losing everything I've put on here, I'll save what I need and start over, thats fine with me.

About the Partitions: I made 2 partitions on my 250 gb hard drive when I installed the dell xp, one of 40 gb, and another of about 200 (storage). I installed xp on the 40 gb drive. I did this because I thought I might want to dual-boot vista later, but now I realize this was probably a dum idea, as already I am down to only 4gb of free space on that 40gb partition. I want to repartition the entire drive as a single partition. If I want to dualboot later I'll just get another hard drive. I don't know how to do this. I do, however, have the ultimate boot cd, and I suspect there might be a tool in there to do this with.

About the Reinstall: I'm just not sure how to go about this. If I can get to a point where my hard drive is just completely clean, I can easily just re-install xp. It was easy enough the first time. The questions is: how do I do this? Would the Ultimate boot CD I have have the required utility?

thanks

If you have a valid key you could try this:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Li [...] lcid=0x409

This utility allows you to change the activation key. I have used this at work where someone installed a ripped off copy of Windows on a co-workers laptop. The laptop had a valid licence key sticker on it, but when this person installed the rip off copy, they used a bogus key. Since he had a valid key, I used it to enter the correct key and it validated and worked fine with WGA.

Partition Magic to resize partitions... and get a valid key.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to bump this.

I don't know what utility on the Boot CD to use - There are so many! Do I use one that will just erase the entire hard drive, or do I have to delete the partitions first? What do I use for either of those tasks?