loading questions

I have Win XP on a 10gb hard drive in my pc.

I’d like to get rid of it and put open suse on as OS.

Do I simply load open suse from my CD----or do I need to reformat my disk?

Wasn’t sure if open suse would get all windows remnants off the hard drive.

You could just reformat the whole drive, it might be a good idea anyhow.

You don’t have to erase nor reformat anything, that would be a loss of time - it’s not even the same filesystem, XP uses NTFS and OS uses ext3 (by default, you can choose another FS but not NTFS, I’d think).

The installer will propose to create a new partitioning scheme, erasing whatever it has to erase to create (and format) new root and swap partitions, and a separate /home partition if you want.

so my OpenSuse CD will do it all for me?

Sounds good.

When you run the install it will by default offer a proposal to keep XP you need to click ‘Create Partition Setup’ at this screen
http://files.myopera.com/carl4926/albums/671478/8.png

and then select the first option at this screen (It will use the whole disc)
http://files.myopera.com/carl4926/albums/671478/9.png
(Not Custom Partitioning as is shown selected)