reformattng XP{ harddrive

is there any difference in reformatting a hard drive on 98 and XP? does anyone know a good tutorial for reformatting a hard drive on XP?

How are you reformatting it? Are you using FDISK, the formatting engine built into Windows XP setup or another, third-party program?

AJ

XP is a bootable cd, just set your bios to boot to the cd, drop it in the drive and follow the onscreen directions.

well now heres the problem, Im not sure i have the xp cd, it just came pre installed on my comp =/

XP is running an NTFS file system, whereas Win98 runs on FAT or FAT32.
NTFS can read FAT/FAt32 files,but it doesn't work the other way around last time I checked, so you might want to keep that in mind.

I have an upgrade cd for windows xp...formatting is a cinch, if yours lets you do the same thing, just begin the xp installation process....there should come a point when it shows all the existing partitions their sizes...etc. You can reformat, partition etc. from the screen.

here is a botch..

some manufacturers preinstall XP-home using FAT32 (or is that crap32), and their Image disks will only reimage the hdd as FAT32.. ouch.. I am not aware of a work around as yet, others may be aware of a way..

but that isn't helping the problem here..

Sry

Cheers

My first question is, why do you think you need to
reformat your hard drive?
:cool:

If you are preinstalled with FAT32 or want to change to NTFS you can convert the filesystem to NTFS with the command convert {drive letter:} /FS:NTFS Its a one way change though and not wildly helpful for anyone with a multiboot system. www.sysinternals.com have NTFS drivers for most M$ os's that dont natively support it if you want to use them but obviously not for the boot partition unless you were planning to use it as a doorstop.

There are benefits in terms of fault tolerance, security {potentially anyway} and speed when using NTFS on drives over 1Gb i could waffle on for hours about the why's and wherefore's but im sure someone here will have already done it at length far more eloquently than i ever could

Paul

i formatted a hard drive that ran xp, but the way i ended up doing it was quite unconventional... ;)

i booted up with a win 98 boot disk in, and that took me to a command prompt. then i just did format c: -s because the command.com on the boot disk still allowed format. there are a lot of other ways to do it (although xp makes it a lot harder to format then the old os's) but i was just playing around and foiund this way worked as well.

If your system came pre-installed with XP then you should have either the XP cd or recovery disks that came with the system.
If you don't, well then we just opened another whole can of worms.

In regards to image disks from some manufacturers formatting in fat32, you can convert the file system after the fact. While this isn't my preferred choice, you can do so by using disk management. (start|run diskmgmt.msc)

Incidently -- exactly what happens to the worms after you open that can? Whats the need of opening another one?? ;) lol

We get to go fishing!

Heh...I really show my age when I say stuff like that, eh? :D

formatting XP....easy enough

if its not the root drive, use disk manager- control panel-administrative tools-computer management-disk management, format from there.
if it is the root drive then do ask techiechick said, and pop in your system restore disk, and boot from it, XP will format it.

windows XP can use fat32 or NTFS....it runs better on NTFS though.

ps..how the hell did this thread make it to 2 pages ? sheesh

Quote:

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is there any difference in reformatting a hard drive on 98 and XP?

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Yup, there are lots of difference.
Win98 only runs of fat32 while WinXP can run on fat32 or NTFS. In XP you have to choose from fat32 or ntfs.

There are lots of tutorial on the web on how to format a hard disk. Try searching the web or try this site http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/hdd-c.html

what exactly do you want to do? do you want to wipe you hard drive completely, if so just fdisk it.

i dont think there is a difference. i believe M$ would have some kind of safty to stop you from formating through windows so you might have to do it through command promt if not, it could be hand to have and old dos boot disk

Wrong.
If the drive is currently formated as NTFS, a 9x boot floppy just isn't going to work unless you're looking for total annihilation of your current setup.

There are differences between the OS's and booting to the XP cd will allow you to set partitions etc.

ok, so how do i figure out what format my HD is in?

start|run
diskmgmt.msc

That will give you file format for your hard drive.

You can also just right click on the drive(s) in Windows Explorer or in the My Computer window and it will tell you what format your drive is.

AJ

set bios to boot to the cd and use the xp cd to clear the partitions and reformat. Or if your bios doesnt support cd boot option you'll need to download the program that makes the 6 floppy boot disks. Win xp boot disks

ok, well i have a big problem with reformatting my comp then, i dont have recovery cd's, nor do i have a XP cd, i never got either when i purchased my comp, i guess i will have to contact IBM ( where i got my comp ) or go out and by the home version of win XP. any other suggestions?

i would say that contacting the company you got the pc from would be a good idea. you should never get a pc without the OS install disk or atleast a recovery disk.

going out and buying it would be an option, but its expensive and i would save that as a last resort.