Fdisk - problems with extended dos partition

[zanben]

It all started with windows vista trying to update 3 updates and could only complete 2 and the third was trying but kept restarting and saying the same thing.  Had a feeling it was something to do with clashing with avg.  Anyway had enough of trying to get it to load windows and had nothing but trouble from vista not showing pages over the internet and not compatible with things, so decided to change back to windows XP, but because of this extended dos partition it has not allowed it.  I have been through the wars with this laptop, believe me this is the last resort before i smash it to smitherines lol.

Trying to delete an extended partition, it is a fixed disk drive.  It is the only thing left to delete.  It says 'no logical drives defined' and 'all logical drives deleted in the extended dos drive'. I have tried to delete from 1-4 of the options in fdisk.  I cannot format and i think it is due to this, as when i got the computer it had dvd direct 3 on it and a long story but this has brought me to this predicament.  Can anyone help me?  It would be very much appreciated

[patio]

Have you tried to recreate the primary partition and delete the extended partition ? ?
Could this be a hidden Recovery partition ? ?

[zanben]

Have you tried to recreate the primary partition and delete the extended partition ? ?
Could this be a hidden Recovery partition ? ?

Yes it may well be a hidden recovery partition, but because of this i don't seem to be able to format the drive.  I have created a partition and tried to delete it but it does not seem to move and when i have loaded up windows vista and xp they won't install, it comes up errors cannot copy this file etc. has 4% of Usage on it and i'm not certain but it had media direct 3 on it, which is a program that lets you play dvd's.  I don't know if that has any significance.