Is there a reason to reformat the c drive?
I would try to do a system restore first
“How To Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP
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Reformating an ATA Hard Drive With Windows XP
I have an ATA Hard Drive with Windows XP pro installed on it. How can I reformat the Hard drive and re-install Windows to it? I have tried restarting the computer with the CD in it but it just skips over the installation process. And I have also tired using a boot disk to start in DOS mode. But when I try to swith drives to my C drive, the computer cannot find the C dirve.
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Answers
Basically the OS installed on the SATA HDD is my copy, which I installed to verify everything was working properly. The PC is a newly built one, and it was my first time using a SATA drive. The friend who I built the PC for picked up his own copy of XP so he can install and activate. but for some reason, when I use use the boot disk to load up DOS, it won't recognize the drive.
it probably won't recognize the drive because the boot disk doesn't have the drivers for the SATA Controller in the computer..
Restart the computer and go into the BIOS (usually pressing delete or F1 or F2 when the computer is first starting). In the BIOS, make sure that the computer is set to boot first from CD. Then save changes and restart with the Windows CD in the drive.
Then make sure that you press a key to load from the CD, otherwise it will bypass it.
From inside the windows installation you can delete the partition and create a new one.
You should be able to do this: boot with the floppy and when you see the A: prompt type FDISK and once on the main menu window you can delete the contents of the drive and then create 1 drive again and set it up as active and then restart and format.
But the XP CD will do all that for you once booting from it.
H
With the DOS boot disk it can't see the drive because Dos doesn't know anything about ntfs.
When you boot with the windows CD, you have to press a key right at the beginning when you are asked if you want to boot from CD or not. Once the CD boots, and you start the installation, youcan delete the partition, then create a new one to install XP on.
The Windows XP CD will *not* recognize an SATA drive automatically. Some of the higher-end motherboards will load drivers for you, but many do not.
What you need to do, is download your hard drives drivers from the manufactuerer and put them on a floppy. Then, during windows setup, you need to press F6 when it says "Press F6 to install additional controller drivers".
Full explaination is here: http://maxtor.custhelp.com
That is relevant, even if your drive is another brand.
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by: gonzal13Posted on 2005-06-26 at 18:15:57ID: 14305575
I am assuming you have a semi operational xp.
I would then go to the bios and change it so that the first device it looks at is the cd rom.
I would boot the PC so that the option screen shows up. It should allow you to access the A drive.
Use the boot floppy disk with the fdisk and the format comand on it. First fdisk and I like one partition. Mine has 4 HDs. Then reboot and go to the same page and format c: I like Fat 32 instead of the more efficient NFTS. Habits go away slowly.
gonzal13(joe)