That immutable Windows partition

I had Windows XP installed on my MacBook, and all was well. But then it really exploded, and I decided to erase the Windows partition and reinstall.
I am running Snow Leopard on the Mac side.

But, when starting Boot Camp, it will not let me create or delete a partition. It won't go past its startup screen. The Disk Utility doesn't seem to say anything about removing or making partitions; and the same result when running the Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard boot disk.

So I am completely stymied: I've seen a number of posts on this problem, but all of the approaches involved either Boot Camp or Disk Utility. I can't get either of these to remove the old partition.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Open Disk Utility. In the left window pane, click on the hard disk itself (NOT the partition, but the hard disk at the top of the tree):



Then do this:



Once done, you can then drag the Macintosh HD partition to take up the whole disk and click Apply.

Isn't it simpler to use the "Restore" function in Boot Camp? That's what I did. Took 1 minute.

Cheers

Edit: I see now the OP's issue is that he can't get into BC. Got it now, thanks!