Formating: What to do

When you format the harddrive, everything is deleted forever, it is impossible to get back. So:

1) back up anything important/dont have a disk for

2) Make sure you have all of your drivers

3) make a boot disk

4) make sure you have your windows disk

5) make sure you have all the data you want backed up (are you seeing a trend??)

6) once you do that, put the windows disk in the computer and shut it off.

7) when it powers up, choose boot with assistance from CD-ROM

8)At the command prompt type: FDISK. Now go into option three. "Delete Partition". Choose option 1 "Delete Primary partition" and follow the on screen instructions. Then go back to the main menu.

9)Choose the menu which says "Create New partition" then go to the sub menu which reads "Create Primary partition". Follow the instructions carefully. The computer will now check your drive. Once it reaches 100% you will be asked "if you wish to maximize the space on your drive" or something to this effect. I recommend that you choose this option. Follow the rest of the on screen steps and you will have created a primary partition on your hard drive. You will now need to restart your computer. Do this now!

10) Ensure that the system disk is still inserted in your floppy drive and that you choose enable CD ROM support when asked.

11) When you are the command prompt type:

format C:

The computer will now start to format the hard drive showing it as % completed. Depending on the size and speed of your hard drive and the speed of your system, this may take a while.

12)After your drive has finished formatting. It will ask you to put in a label for the driver. This is what Windows will call your driver but I recommend that you press enter and not use one. (I called mine SUPERCHRIS, much to my moms dismay)

13)Put in your Windows CD and type

E: or the letter assigned to your CD ROM Drive, then press enter. Driver D: is just a temporary driver that will not appear when you are in Windows

To start the installation type Setup and press enter: This command only applies to the following O/S :- Windows 95, 98 and ME

For for Windows 2000 or NT4,

Put the O/S disc into your CD-Rom and type:-

E: or the letter assigned to your CD ROM Drive, then press enter. Driver D: is just a temporary driver that will not appear when you are in Windows.

Now type CD i386, then type WinNT to start Setup

Note: Windows NT does not support FAT32

14) Now you will need to re-install all of your drivers. You will notice that your display is crappy, thats because your comp doesn't see your video card. I installed this driver first. Then I put in the modem driver and ethernet driver. This enables the internet, in case you need help. Continue, installing all the drivers you have. You may need to go to Control Panel, System, Device Manager. Click on the devices, then resources. Then re-install driver. That should do it.

15) For me, it didn't work still. Go to Control Panel, System, Device Manager. Click on the devices, and a yellow exclamation mark will indicate a conflict/problem. The driver may not be on, or there may be an IRQ conflict. This happened to me. Click properties, then click off Choose automatic settings, and start picking ones until there is no more conflict.



That should do it! Any questions?

PS, you will have problems, I did, but I solved them.

Tis a fairly good FAQ there, Chris. Im just wondering why it suddenly got posted up here? :huh:

Also, if you dont mind a little critisizm, there are a couple minor errors that I would like to correct, as well as add a few small comments.

But what if your computer does not detect a CD-ROM in ODS mode? You need to copy the drivers for the CD drive to the HD, and create an autoexec.bat and config.sys file with the path to the drivers. Then can you access the CD-ROM drive from DOS.

Plus you should also use the command line "format c: /s" to let the computer know that the HD is the primary drive.

MBTN basically made the points I was going to. Except......


Originally posted by MBTN
Plus you should also use the command line "format c: /s" to let the computer know that the HD is the primary drive.


The /s in the format copies the "system" after format, meaning the command interpreter (command.com) Allowing the drive to be bootable.
It does not make it the primary partition / drive. That is done through Fdisk.

If you formatted the drive already and did not copy the system, you can preform the following to copy it without formatting again

SYS C:

The sys command will copy the system for you.

There are many variables in an installation, and you may not need to copy the system depending on what OS you are trying to install

EDIT: If the drive partitions are fine, and you do not need to change them, you can skip the entire FDisk portion that Chris posted, and go straight to formatting.

:)

I would also like to add that formating will not completely get rid of your data. If you are paranoid you can do a low level int on the drive about ten times and then there will be no way to see what was on the drive, but formating will not do it alone. There is a way to get back the data.

formatting is the quick and simple way of doing it

i have not reformatted a drive in a long long time (about 6 or 7 years) but have reinstalled windows several times


the easier way of fixing any windows screw-ups without worrying about losing important data is to go to dos mode (pure dos, not a dos window)

do:

deltree /y c:\progra~1
deltree /y c:\windows

then install as normal :)

the only thing of note is to be 100% sure no important data and/or program settings are in either of these program directories

you may need to modify one or 2 lines from your config.sys and/or autoexec.bat dirs

another note: remember to delete those folder IN THAT ORDER
its important because the deltree command resides in c:\windows\command\

(you may have to delete other stuff.. this is not really a technique for novices but it does spare you of having to delete data from removing partions)


very near 100% of the time a repartition/reformat is not necessary its easier, but not necessary.. windows screws up because eventually the file system goes sour, or windows does

its a problem with windows/FAT, not your hard drive
restarting with a clean slate in terms of windows, or a freshly installed OS is the simple solution

or you could just use a "modular" OS like linux :D

Originally posted by shadowboy


or you could just use a "modular" OS like linux :D

Ahh, someone else here with good tastes. :)

If you only have 1 harddrive you shouldnb't have to call it the primary harddrive. Also, aren't there switched on the actual drive that change it from primary to secondary.

The primary reason I formatted was because scandisk and defragment weren't working, and we had 30gigs on the hard drive (very poor management by mother/brother). I couldn't fix all the problems that kept occuring and that were about to occur (big crashes, etc). I re-installed windows, then went all the way and formatted.

I have also been thinking about Linux, Heep likes it too.

Originally posted by Chris
If you only have 1 harddrive you shouldnb't have to call it the primary harddrive. Also, aren't there switched on the actual drive that change it from primary to secondary.



You are correct, Chris :) Sometimes it is a jumper setting that makes it master / slave /cable select on the drive itself, and sometimes you dont need the jumper and you can choose in the BIOS, and sometimes its a combo of the above. It depends on how new the motherboard and harddrive are, and what their default setting is.

What I meant by "primary" in my post was "primary partition" I apologize for the bad terminology.

Chris. If you are interested in linux and have any questions about it, PM me. Ive been using it for quite some time, and I can probably answer most of your questions

:)

Originally posted by Chris


Note: Windows NT does not support FAT32




That is incorrect as well. Any NT based system supports FAT32.

Originally posted by kbslacker



That is incorrect as well. Any NT based system supports FAT32.

Ohhh, I missed that! Yep, NT/2000/XP all support Fat32.

Originally posted by kbslacker



That is incorrect as well. Any NT based system supports FAT32.

no sir, you are wrong windows NT does NOT support FAT32.. only FAT12 and FAT16, win2k does, however support FAT32

Originally posted by shadowboy


no sir, you are wrong windows NT does NOT support FAT32.. only FAT12 and FAT16, win2k does, however support FAT32


Well, my NT 4.0 box sure does read my FAT32 partitioned box. Besides, Windows 2000, and Windows XP Pro are NT based systems. I would think Xp home is NT based as well, but I am not sure.

here is what i do to save the format dilema

all my software goes on c: which is kept to about 4GB

d: is the games
e: is data archival (spreadsheets etc)

c: only contains program files and any setting/data files that have to be in the same dir as the program

case in point:

pegasus mail resides on c:
but the mail folders reside on e:

all downloads get placed on e:

all mp3s are on h:

low-down of drives:
c: 4.5GB hard drive, windows/programs
d: 18GB games, multimedia capture disk
e: 9GB data/archives
f: 40X CD-ROM
g: CD-RW
h: my home directory on the linux box, through samba

Originally posted by kbslacker



Well, my NT 4.0 box sure does read my FAT32 partitioned box. Besides, Windows 2000, and Windows XP Pro are NT based systems. I would think Xp home is NT based as well, but I am not sure.

when saying windows NT i was referring to NT4 and earlier

win2k is NT 5

btw.. maybe FAT32 is supported via a SRP for NT4

but when i installed it my fat32 drives were not recognized
NT4 out of the box does NOT support FAT32

Originally posted by shadowboy


when saying windows NT i was referring to NT4 and earlier

win2k is NT 5

btw.. maybe FAT32 is supported via a SRP for NT4

but when i installed it my fat32 drives were not recognized
NT4 out of the box does NOT support FAT32


At least I covered my ass by saying NT based. :D

speaking of deleting everything forever. When you uninstall a program on your computer its still there after the uninstall. All the computer does it change the first character of the directory so the cpu, hard drive etc. doesn't recognize it.

use NTFS

Originally posted by shadowboy


when saying windows NT i was referring to NT4 and earlier

win2k is NT 5

btw.. maybe FAT32 is supported via a SRP for NT4

but when i installed it my fat32 drives were not recognized
NT4 out of the box does NOT support FAT32

Out of the box won't but NT4 with SP4 and up will support FAT32.

Originally posted by AEstud
speaking of deleting everything forever. When you uninstall a program on your computer its still there after the uninstall. All the computer does it change the first character of the directory so the cpu, hard drive etc. doesn't recognize it.

Yes, but you can get rid of it right away by bleaching the unused part of the harddisk. I do this with Norton Symantic (sp?). I downloaded it, and it works great, I recommend getting it. It has a feature that lets you bleach the whole hard drive, or just the unused section. You can even do it multiple times, to DOD standards (takes awhile, though).

But the speedisk defragmenter is the best part, though.

I have norton system works and I haven't seen anything about bleaching. Also the degragmentor doesn't actually deleted it either if thats what you are saying.

Well that would be called a shredder or low level initialize. What it does is write 1s and 0s over the specific area of the hard drive over the file or entire hard drisk so that you could never see the files that were on there just 1s and 0s. It is great for covering your tracks.

logically it would be all 0's since the directory itself in essance is 1's and 0's.

Originally posted by AEstud
I have norton system works and I haven't seen anything about bleaching. Also the degragmentor doesn't actually deleted it either if thats what you are saying.

No, the defragmenter is different.

Go to system mainenance (3rd from the top), then from there, Wipe Info (2nd from top in the little window). There are 3 options, Files, Folders, and Free Space. I wiped my Free Space. After you chose the drive, you can choose fast wipe, or Government Wipe (DOD 5220.22M) For the Fast Wipe, you can choose the value to be used (between 0 and 255, or 0 and 11111111 when using binary).
Then wipe:)

This is just bleaching your free space, but you can delete the entire hard drive, and Norton would be kept in the RAM while it did all of this, so it would completely wipe.

ahhh yes...I would do that if it/they were not shaded out out....how can I enable those options? No crap the defrag is different