How to format 120Gb disk???

  • Thread starter Thread starter R. Wink
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R

R. Wink

I've got a 2.4Mhz/533 P4 with a 120Gb WD hard disk. Neither XP home or 2KPRO will install on the disk. However if I
partition to a 60Gb drive both will install. I then can't format the rest of the disk.
Anybody have an idea how to format the disk in a single partition and install XP Home?
R. Wink
 
Just in case, since it is a Western Digital, they are a little different
concerning the master/slave jumper. If you have 2 drives (master & slave)
it is fairly straingtforward. If you are running it as the only drive on an
IDE channel you have to set it to single or remove the Master/slave jumper.

Clark
 
I've got a 2.4Mhz/533 P4 with a 120Gb WD hard disk. Neither XP home or 2KPRO will install on the disk. However if I
partition to a 60Gb drive both will install. I then can't format the rest of the disk.
Anybody have an idea how to format the disk in a single partition and install XP Home?
R. Wink
Click to expand...


why on earth would you want to install xp on one 120 gig partition? when
you have to reinstall you'll have to completely empty the drive...

you should make a smaller partition just for the install. 20 gigs or
whatever.
 
R. Wink said:
I've got a 2.4Mhz/533 P4 with a 120Gb WD hard disk. Neither XP home or
Click to expand...
2KPRO will install on the disk. However if I
partition to a 60Gb drive both will install. I then can't format the rest of the disk.
Anybody have an idea how to format the disk in a single partition and install XP Home?
R. Wink
Click to expand...
win2kpro will handle a hdd up to 130gb (and larger once the service pack is
installed) so it must be jumper settings or Motherboard that's the problem.
yak is right though - best to set a smaller c partition and large d
partition so when you need to do a reinstall you can backup to d and format
c easily. I use a 40/80 setup. If you still have the original primary drive
and data put the new drive as slave and use WD software to setup the
drives - it can partition/format/copy is one and then physically swap the
drives and you're done.
 
R. Wink said:
I've got a 2.4Mhz/533 P4 with a 120Gb WD hard disk. Neither XP home or
2KPRO will install on the disk. However if I
partition to a 60Gb drive both will install. I then can't format the rest
of the disk.
Anybody have an idea how to format the disk in a single partition and
install XP Home?
R. Wink
Click to expand...

You may want to run Delpart (its a small utility which used to be included
in DOS and is downloadable of the web if you search for it) from a bootable
DOS disk (can make one of these using windows XP) and delete all partitions
on the drive before attempting a reinstall. You could even go one step
further and run the Western Digital DLG utility's "Write Zeros" option to
the drive. This will likely take several hours but will completely
obliterate all partitions (including hidden ones) and data as well as
testing the drive and if good, restoring it to like when it left the
factory. Once you've done this its a simple matter of booting from your XP
CDROM to commence the install and select the default options for the drive.
I recommend against multiple partitions for general home use with one OS
installed - they just complicate things unnecessarily and you can do
everything you need using folder structures. As for backups/reinstalls, its
not wise to depend on the same drive for both your working system and its
backup data or image - if the drive fails, you've likely lost the lot. Its
much better if you perform backups of your essential data using a DVD
Burner. A single partition for XP this size is fine (I have a single 250 GB
C drive partition on my desktop machine - with backups on my home server and
DVD media).

Paul
 
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