Hi, Frank.
ok how do you format in does?
The word is DOS, not does. It's short for Disk Operating System. MS-DOS
(Microsoft DOS) dates back to the early 1980s, but it was used to run
Windows versions up through Windows 98 and Windows ME. The NT (New
Technology) platform, developed in the 1990s, is used for Windows XP. Each
time the computer reboots, if you have the necessary files available (on
your hard drive or on a floppy diskette), you can choose to boot into either
MS-DOS or into WinXP. To switch from one to the other you must reboot. You
can't run both at once.
You don't really want to do this but, to answer your question:
To format a drive in MS-DOS, set your computer to boot from the floppy
diskette. (How to do this depends on your computer and its BIOS.) Have
available a bootable diskette that also includes the programs FDISK.EXE and
Format.com. Run FDISK to delete any existing partitions and create one or
more new ones. Then use Format to format the partitions IF you want to use
FAT32 (or any other version of FAT). But, MS-DOS cannot read, write, boot
from, format or even SEE an NTFS partition. So you'll have to reboot into
WinXP at this point - and be back where you are now. :>( As I said, you
really don't want to do this; Disk Management can create and format
partitions from WinXP at least as well as FDISK and Format can - and you
don't have to reboot into DOS.
You really need to understand more about hard disk drives and file systems,
Frank. There are many resources available. One that is at your fingertips
is the Help file in Disk Management. It is not organized in narrative or
tutorial form; you'll have to skip around a lot (click Related Topics or
follow the hypertext links) to get the whole picture, but you can learn a
lot here. For a more extensive explanation, see the online version of the
WinXP Pro Resource Kit
(
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...indows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prork_overview.asp),
especially Chapters 12 - Disk Management, 13 - File Systems, and 27 -
Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems.
Your opening line said:
"Recently purchased a Lacie 160gb Fire wire External Harddrive. I am
having
trouble formating the drive from FAT 32 to NTFS."
Not all computers can handle a hard drive larger than about 137 GB. You
need up-to-date hardware, BIOS and operating system for that. What is the
make and model of your computer? Is your WinXP updated with SP2? If not,
Disk Management would behave about as you describe when it hit the 137 GB
barrier.
Assuming that your computer can handle it, Disk Management should be able to
create one or more partitions on your HD and then format it (them) to NTFS.
(Microsoft limited WinXP's ability to format FAT32 to partitions no larger
than 32 GB, but it should have no trouble formatting the largest partitions
available today by using NTFS.)
Tell us more about your computer so that we can help you determine if it can
handle "big drives".
RC
