Cannot delete partition

Hi Guys,
I have a problem in that I can't delete one of my partitions.
I have 3 hard drives, 1x1tb sata with my main os, win 7 ultimate 64bit and 3 other partitions. 1x500gb sata with win xp 32bit and other partitions. 1x250gb ide with 5 partitions.
I kept the xp as a dual boot with win 7 ages ago, but now I have decided to wipe it off to use the space. I used miniTool patition wizard to delete the xp partition (as easeus pm won't do that),let it do its stuff, and there was a nice big blank partition, waiting to be filled. Rebooted and nothing happened! I thought there must have been important loading files on the xp partition which were hosed with the deletion, so popped in my win 7 disk and fixed the MBR. When I rebooted, windows auto ran check disk and started to repair things, which seemed to be ok. So I left it to sort itself out and went to bed. 4 hours later it was still churning about, so, I went back to sleep. Come the morning and win 7 was sat there good as gold. Anyway, tonight after booting up and checking my drives, it turns out that there is my xp partition, still full of.........well, xp and stuff, sitting there as if nothing has happened!
Does anyone know what DID happen,and why? And, how can I actually delete/format the partition properly, preferably without having to fix the mbr again?
Thanks
Dave

Why can`t you just delete it from 7 ?

If you are using the PW disc, make sure you are deleting the proper partition. The disc never fails. You may have to mark the XP partition inactive b4 it will let you delete it.

AddRAM said:

Why can`t you just delete it from 7 ?

If you are using the PW disc, make sure you are deleting the proper partition. The disc never fails. You may have to mark the XP partition inactive b4 it will let you delete it.

After I had deleted the partition, it showed up as empty in minitool pm and easeus, so it was the right one. I'm not using a disc, just the downloaded software.
Win 7 wont format it. Gives me the message "windows was unable to complete the format" as soon as I click on "format".

Have you tried using diskpart from command prompt?

Please post a screenshot of your Disk Management window using this tutorial to help you:

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

Here's a screenshot of my messy drives....

One of the worst Disk Mgmt messes I've ever seen. Did you just do things randomly without asking or caring?

Unplug all of the HD's except the Win7 HD, boot into free Partition Wizard CD to rightclick Win7 partition to Modify>Set to Primary, click OK. Then rightclick Win7 partition again to Modify>Set to Active, click OK, then Apply both steps.

Now boot into Win7 installer System Recovery Options to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 holds the System Active boot flags which it can only do as a Primary Partition. Make sure it's set as HD first to boot in BIOS setup so it starts.

If there is an OS on D since it is marked Active then repeat the same PW steps with only it's HD plugged in that you did for Win7 on C, and boot it separately via the BIOS Boot Menu key. If it is not an OS partition then mark it Inactive using Partition Wizard CD.

You can then plug back in the other HD's, boot XP if it's still there independently using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key.

After seeing that screenshot I am not supprised you are having issues. Follow gregrockers advise... and slowly rebuild your hard drive setup as that is messy.

Thanks for the advice gregrocker. I noticed you edited your original post, if that was to tone it down a bit you needn't have bothered, you're quite right, it is a damn mess.
I take what you say in the right spirit, as I'm sure that's how it was meant. I do tend to charge about rather haphazardly in many areas of life, and my pc is just one of them.
I will follow your instructions and I'm sure I'll achieve my initial goal of deleting my xp partition. As for 'rebuilding my hard drive setup' as mentioned by ThermoDust.....what exactly am I aiming at?........fewer partitons....more equally sized partitions?........I'm at a bit of a loss as to what a hard drive setup 'should' look like.
Any advice greatfully received.......as was everything up to now, thanks for that.
Dave