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Formating and Partitioning Hard Drive

I installed a Western Digital Expert 18GB HDD and copied my
old data to it using WD'S EZ Drive software. Everything
seems to work fine,except I cannot defrag. I tried to reinstall Windows and got out of Mem message. I think the problem is because of the size on new HDD. Windows still thinks I have the old 4.3GB. I want to reformat and partition. Would someone give me the exact steps I need to do. I am pretty good on the PC, but have had little experience informating a new HDD. Please be remedial, I want to do it right the first time.

The question is easy for you pros, but I want foolproof instructions so I will give 300 points.

Bo

celtics

Well let me give it a shot for you.

Warning : Make sure your BIOS setting is correct for the drive, see the drive installation instructions.

Note : If you computer will not boot to the A: drive go into the BIOS settings and make sure the computer boots to the A: drive first, then C:

1) Insert a blank diskette and format it.
-From windows open a command prompt(dos prompt) and enter 'format a:' at the prompt.
2) With step one complete type 'sys a:', this will make a bootable diskette out of it.
3) Copy 'fdisk.exe' to the a: drive -
copy c:\windows\command\fdisk.exe a:
4) Copy 'format.com' to the a: drive -
copy c:\windows\command\format.com a:
5) Copy 'sys.com' to the a: drive
copy c:\windows\command\sys.com a:
6) Reboot the computer with disk in drive a:
7) At the command prompt enter -
fdisk
8) Delete all of the partitions on the drive
9) Create the partitions you want making sure to select one as the primary partition
10) Exit fdisk and reboot the computer with the disk still in drive a:
11) At the command prompt enter -
format c:
answer 'y' to format the drive
if you create more than one partition, you will want to do the same for all of the partitions (d,e,...)
12) Upon completing step 10 enter -
sys c:
this will make it so drive c: is bootable

Drive is now bootable, follow your windows installation normally.

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celtics

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rayt333

Couple of things here that may not work with that answer (no offense intended)
With a drive over 8.4GB very few BIOS will see the correct size unless you have a fairly new computer ( I assume you don't since you are upgrading the HD already), check for a newer version of your BIOS and update it if possible. If none is available then you may have to use the WD EZ-Drive software to install the HD (meaning everything in the proposed answer will not work) This is one of the problems you run into installing a HD this big in an older computer. Most people say do not use the WD-EZ-drive but I have on several computers and have never had any problems with it.
My advice is to use the EZ-drive software and reformat the HD and recopy the old HD to the NEW one again and see if it works then.
Did you partition the new HD? it will take several hours to defrag or run scandisk on a HD this big without any partitions. I never use partitions bigger then 2.1GB (just my own personal opinion here)

cumbo

If the only problem you have is Defragging you shouldn't need to re-install Windows.

I would guess that you can't defrag because defrag needs to put the drive info into memory while working. That large of a drive may take up more memory space then you have available.

Try running Defrag from the Command Prompt. Boot to the Command Prompt and type Defrag.

Cumbo

boyoung

ASKER

I reformatted and reinstalled Win 98 and all my other programs and date. Everything works great now.

Bo