re- formatting a drive in xp

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jake
  • Start date Start date
J

Jake

Does anyone know how to reformat a hard drive through windows xp? On my old
98se machine if I wanted to reformat a drive I simply restarted in dos and
typed for example -- "format c:". But as we all know you cant restart in
Dos in Xp because it doesnt run on top of Dos. I know that when I install
Xp it formats the drive for me but I was wondering if there was anyway I
could do it my self using the format command in a sort of dos environment.

Thanks

Jake
 
Jake said:
Does anyone know how to reformat a hard drive through windows xp? On my old
98se machine if I wanted to reformat a drive I simply restarted in dos and
typed for example -- "format c:". But as we all know you cant restart in
Dos in Xp because it doesnt run on top of Dos. I know that when I install
Xp it formats the drive for me but I was wondering if there was anyway I
could do it my self using the format command in a sort of dos environment.
Click to expand...

Right click "My Computer", click "Manage", click "Disk Management",
right click in the window of the drive you want to format, click "Format...".

-- Bob Day
 
Right click "My Computer", click "Manage", click "Disk Management",
right click in the window of the drive you want to format, click "Format...".

-- Bob Day
Click to expand...





Ah ok. But what actually happens when I do that? how can you format a
drive from within windows? And if the drive you want to format has
theoperating system on it would it not corrupt?
 
Hi, Jake.

In WinXP, we use Disk Management to do almost everything that we used to do
with FDISK and Format.exe. Disk Management will create partitions, delete
them, assign drive letters, and format them.

We use Disk Management for all EXCEPT the System Partition (almost always
Drive C:) and the Boot Volume (also often Drive C:). Even in Win9x/ME and
in MS-DOS, we can't format the drive that holds the OS that is currently
running. So, in MS-DOS, to run FDISK and to Format C: we had to boot from a
floppy (Drive A:). Even then, though, we couldn't format NTFS from MS-DOS.

In WinXP, we boot from the WinXP CD-ROM if we need to repartition or format
either the System Partition or the Boot Volume. Any other drives can be
handled from Disk Management.

RC
 
Jake said:
Ah ok. But what actually happens when I do that? how can you format a
drive from within windows? And if the drive you want to format has
theoperating system on it would it not corrupt?
Click to expand...

Very good question, Jake. Never try to reformat the system drive from the
system drive. That's like a brain surgeon performing a lobotomy on himself.
(sorry, ladies, herself).

What you should do is use a bootable disk (floppy or CD) and do the
re-format from there. Of course, when you do this all data on the HD will be
lost.

You can use your original Windows XP CD to boot from, assuming you have set
up your BIOS to allow booting from a CD.
 
It's purty! April and October are my favorite months here. Days around
80F, nights about 60. Occasional storms, of course. This is, after all,
tornado alley.

And that beautiful San Marcos River...aaahh! ;<)

Did you hear that they dropped Southwest from the name of the college? It's
now Texas State University-San Marcos. About 26,000 students, including a
few in doctoral programs, especially in geography.

RC
 
No, hadn't heard. Looks like they are getting the recognition they deserve -
and the student population obviously reflects it, being the 6th largest
campus in the state.

One of these days I'm going back to enjoy the beauty of San Marcos again.
There is no place like it.

Nice seeing you on the 'net again.

Papa
 
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