Formatting a WIN XP drive

[tjw]

I have WIN XP installed and am using the NTFS file system. But I need to wipe the hard drive clean and format it with the regular DOS file system. I have booted from the floppy drive A and tried to use the DOS format.com, but this does not work. Anybody have the solution?
Thanks!
TJW

 

[Chopper]

I belive you need to run fdsik first. You need run fdisk and remove the partion, then you can create a new fat32 partiton. Your boot disk should have fdisk on it. If it still dosn't work here is a website about removing nfts partitons -

http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/remove_ext_ntfs.html

At the end of the page is a link to a partion utility, which i belive is freeware which should be able to remove any partions you want. That should simplify things if you don't like using the comand line. I hope that helps.

 

[BeppoMarx]

you can also boot from a win98 SE disk and use fdisk (if you dont know how just remove everything you can starting form options 4 to 1 then re-add a primary dos partition); its in the tools folder i belive somewhere. then start windows setup; it will format in fat32 and you can cancel installatoin while/after it restarts your machine.

 

[Martin]

Usually, for WD branded drives, I use WD's DataLifeguard Tools' partitioning utility when I need to make a clean conversion back from NTFS to FAT32 (though loss of all data).

Simply copy the prog files onto a floppy disk, and boot from it to start the utility.

Depending on your HD flavor (137 GB HDD and above or less), different versions of the utility of the tools are available here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

 

[tjw]

Thanks!

Thanks for the replies.
I finally did learn that going into CMOS and selecting CD as the bootup option works; BUT only if the bootup option of "Look for other choices" is also disabled, or else the computer automatically goes to the hard drive and uses whatever operating system is on it.