Need help formatting C:

[Captain Fizz]

This will not work if you have a brand new drive ....this has to be partitioned using fdisk on a Windows 98 disk .

It will work. Done it numerous times.

Change the BIOS to boot from floppy . Insert floppy and boot up.

He doesn't have a floppy. (3rd post)

As Gavstar said though - If you can see your E:, you should be able to see your C:...

Remove all other HDD's from the system... Just have the OS drive in, then see what happens.

 

[Duouk2000]

Why not just boot via your xp cd, press r and type format c: at the command prompt?

Failing that download and burn the ultimate boot cd, boot via that and use one of the many programs on the disk to format your c: drive.

 

[KotFM]

You may have to select the C: drive and then hit "D" to delete the partition before it will let you format it under the XP installation.

As J.T says, if you don't delete the old partition first, and then create a new one, the only option you will get is to install a second copy of XP on C: - which is not a good thing to do!

Download a copy of knoppix linux

If you're still having problems, one of those Linux live cds should let you get rid of your old partition. I'm not much of a Linux expert (I got help from the software engineer at work the last time I needed to do this), but there is a command you can type:

dd if=/ dev/zero of=/hda bs=1M

this will completely wipe the drive, allowing you to install XP again from your cd. I would disconnect any other hard drives beforehand though, just in case you blank the wrong one!

I used this method to delete the hidden recovery partition on a Dell pc.

I know this is the Windows forum, but I cannot recommend these live Linux distros enough. Very handy for diagnosing problems, and they let you back-up files if you can't boot into Windows.

 

[J.T]

This will not work if you have a brand new drive ....this has to be partitioned using fdisk on a Windows 98 disk

It's amazing how many people think this kind of thing...

 

[ns400r]

When booting into Windows, is it actually installed on the C drive or do you have card readers in your system that have taken the earlier drive letters?

 

[rickyt]

"This will not work if you have a brand new drive ....this has to be partitioned using fdisk on a Windows 98 disk "

point taken guy's . But , what if you dont want to load an operating system onto the drive ?? .XP will format then imediatelly start to load files etc on .
Wanted to just partition & format a drive in NTFS recently and could I hell find a boot disk that will do it in NTFS. As said , If I use the XP disk its starts to put an OS on .
Can someone answer this : I have a built new system , put all the drivers ,programs etc on to the drive and using Paragon disk copy created a perfect image to a spare hard drive .Now , I want to transfer the image to 30 new identical PC's .If the 30 new drives have'nt been partitioned and formatted how do I get windows to recognise these drives in order to transfer the image ??

 

[Captain Fizz]

point taken guy's . But , what if you dont want to load an operating system onto the drive ??

Format it in XP...
In Computer Management -> Disk Management.

I want to transfer the image to 30 new identical PC's .If the 30 new drives have'nt been partitioned and formatted how do I get windows to recognise these drives in order to transfer the image ??

The imaging software does it for you.

You don't need to do anything to the drives.
At least with Ghost, Acronis and Alteris.
I would use different imaging software if it doesn't do that...

 

[rickyt]

cheers 4 that .I have Ghost but have never used it ,So ,I will give it a go .
How I got around the new drive problem was to fdisk all the new drives in a PC using the Win98 boot disk . Transfered the new drive to the new PC but as a slave ,booted up on the master [Paragon disk copied] ,formatted the new drive in Xp on NTFS , ran Paragon and copied the contents of C: to D:[new :slave] .Switched off and removed the Imaged hard drive C: . Now the new D: is now C:........got that ? ....... and every PC is working great , but it still is a faf . Would much rather have a boot disk that formats straight to NTFS . Paragon is good and seems very fast at what it does without giving any errors .

 

[ns400r]

Ths thread has strayed a bit from "Simple question: How do I format my C:?".

That disk imaging software must be poor if it can do a simple 'image' to a new drive.

 

[bigjonnyauk]

hi mate did you ever get this sorted lol

i had this prob with my sisters machines last week wouldnt format the drive as it was a ide kept failing

so i re booted from the cd again and you press a button to enter the old style c: stuff


i just typed the format c: thingy and it formatted it then restarted put windows on did quick format and it went on fine