Question

Format a hard drive with windows XP

Asked by: Irv9

How do I format a hard drive that has Windows XP on it
Thank you

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Asked On
2007-03-05 at 11:34:00ID22429031
Topic

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
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Answers

 

by: ScarEyePosted on 2007-03-05 at 11:38:09ID: 18656722

Just go to My Computer right click on the drive and click on format, choose your file system (hopfully NTFS) and click start.

 

by: ScarEyePosted on 2007-03-05 at 11:46:29ID: 18656787

And if you don't see the drive in My Computer then go into Computer managment (right click on my computer and click on manage), Disk Managment and make that partition active.

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-03-05 at 12:16:15ID: 18657002

If the drive is primay drive and contains OS of the system, you can not simply format it. Hook up it as slave on other system and do format it.

 

by: Irv9Posted on 2007-03-05 at 12:16:16ID: 18657003

Did what you said in first answer and it said windows was unable to format drive. Am I doing something wrong?

 

by: Irv9Posted on 2007-03-05 at 12:23:52ID: 18657056

Are you saying I have to remove the drive and put it in another machine?

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-03-05 at 12:29:05ID: 18657101

Yes, that is right. System can not format its own drive which has OS in it. Is there any reason that you need to format the drive? reinstall ?

 

by: Irv9Posted on 2007-03-05 at 12:44:11ID: 18657189

Yes, drive is a mess, crossed files etc. I have the Windows XP disk to reinstall. Are you saying XP is not like Windows 98 whre you could just go to the C drive in dos and type fdisk and then format the dirve.

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-03-05 at 12:57:47ID: 18657298

Why dont you just start up computer from CD/DVD with XP CD in, then do installation. During installation, it will appear options for you to partition, format, etc.

XP has no DOS, but you can use dos to fdisk or windows 98 boot disk cd to format the drive in dos mode, not in windows environment, then re- install XP.

 

by: ScarEyePosted on 2007-03-05 at 13:19:23ID: 18657475

Oh my bad I should read carefully, I didn't realize it was the OS drive you wanted to format.  

DOH !

 

by: ScarEyePosted on 2007-03-05 at 13:20:40ID: 18657488

Do what Punky said. Boot from the xp cd and it will have the option to format.

 

by: Irv9Posted on 2007-03-05 at 13:29:16ID: 18657551

I have a Win98SE floppy start up disk and I tried to use fdisk from it. The machine told me the disk was not fomated and ask if I wanted to format it. Does that mean the machine can not read that floppy because It was not created on XP?

 

by: ScarEyePosted on 2007-03-05 at 13:37:25ID: 18657616

Windows 98 will see FAT16 or FAT32 drives. Not NTFS which is probably what your XP machine was formatted to.

The easiest way to do this is.  Take your copy of Windows XP, Boot off of it, and delete/format the partition, and re-install.

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-03-05 at 14:46:10ID: 18658043

Irvy,

Do you able to configure bios to boot from CD/DVD? If you do, you can setup that and put XP CD in the CD drive, then restart system. OS will automatically install, and it will ask if you want delete, format, partition, etc during installation. You should do this way and it is easiest way. Should you have any errors during that, post back.

 

by: Irv9Posted on 2007-03-05 at 17:39:45ID: 18658932

Thansks Punky and to all who provided input.
irv

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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