FDISK HOW TO ??

[HATEWINDOWS]

sorry for the basic question, but how do you do a completely clean format of a hardrive,did it years ago...something about FDISK ?..instructions please, i have a corrupted W2K and want a fresh drive to put WINME on to.

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

Use your boot up floppy. You can create one with Settings/control panel/add remove programs. You probably don't need to use the FDISK program, just reformat the drive.

<b> JOHN HANCOCK </b>

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

BTW, since you have WinMe, the read the Quick Start Guide, it covers everything you need to know to do a clean install.

<b> JOHN HANCOCK </b>

 

[hammerhead]

If your drive was formatted with NTFS then you will need to use FDISK to delete the partition, then create a FAT32 partition.

If the drive was running Win 2000 with FAT32, then all you need to do is format.

Either way, you neet a boot floppy first.

 

[HATEWINDOWS]

thanks hammer', yes it is formatted with NTFS, i have a boot
disc now, just couldnt remember how to do a FDISK ,seems like the right thing if i am going to install Winme , as iy would not recognise NTFS files,and i would end up with corrupted / unuseable HDD space i suppose...now i assume i will get prompts how to Fdisk once i boot up with boot disk ????

 

[lakedude]

Fdisk is totally command line based and will not prompt you to do anything. It will give you something like 4 options and you will need to know what you are doing to get Fdisk to work. Since you do not seem to be using Fdisk on a regular basis maybe you should try Partition Magic. PM is a gui based program that is easier to use than Fdisk and is also more powerful. Making a new partition with Fdisk will destroy data, making a new partition with PM does not destroy data.

If you decide to use Fdisk use the following steps:

Note all "hits" are from main menu.

1)Find Fdisk on the startup disk and run it by typing "fdisk"

2)Check the current partition info by hitting "4"

3)Delete the ntfs partition by hitting "3"

4)After deleting hit "4" to show current. You should have nothing but free space.

5)Hit "1" to create a new partition. Make your Fat32 partition.

6)Hit "2" to make it active.

7)You are done with Fdisk but you may need to format the new partition.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lakedude on 04/10/01 10:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

Like I said...read the Quick Start Guide...starting on page 39.

<b> JOHN HANCOCK </b>

 

[HATEWINDOWS]

thanks speedy , but i dont have the quick start guide. cheers.

 

[icxcnika]

Depending on certain things, go into your BIOS or setup (normally press Delete when its testing your RAM) and do a low-level format. However:
1. Make sure you have a bootup disk with fdisk, format, and command.com
2. A lowlevel format can permanantly crash your hard drive when done incorrectly, so if you're uncomfortable with that, just go with fdisk and then format, but sometimes you'll NEED to lowlevel it first. To tell, was your hard drive compressed when it crashed? If it was, then you have to low level.