Formatting Hard Drive with Win2000Pro Installed

self | Nov 21st 2001 | self

[danmar]

I usually do not post this type of stuff, but I am in need of some expert advise in this field and in return I will tell you how to fix your water pump on your car, when it starts leaking, or anything cars for that matter.(just ask the expert, 24 years in the car business and counting).

My dilema is as follows:I was running Win98 until it became very unstable(had to reboot almost every two hours)and I decided to install Win2000Pro. So I did just that, but come to find out that the new OS was installed right on top of my existing OS.At the same time my old keyboard went south, so I replaced it with a new one(Logitech with all the doodahhs)and lo'and behold the 2000 went gaga.(The machine started to reboot itself with no stopping in sight).

So I figured I have to format my hard drive and start a new.Come to find out that the system was formatting only the remaining space not the whole hard drive. So out of 10G hard drive, it showed, I have only 1.8G hard drive, because I have installed three 2000's on top of each other.

To make a long story short, I need advice as to how to format my hard drive(i bought some hard drive managing software, but they can not cut the 2000). I know for a fact that on this forum are some pretty sharp tacks, regarding computer affairs and this is the reason I am posting this vanity(I am just about to pull whatever hair is left on my head in my frustration).If anyone gets offended by this posting, I do appologise for the bandwidh waste.

[danmar]

bttt!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Are the drives and partitions set up as FAT32? If so, boot from a floppy and run F-disk and kill all the partitions and then create a new one using the entire drive and reinstall from that point (make sure you have a floppy that will boot the CD Rom as well). If the drive is in NTFS, then you'll need more than just a regular F-Disk to kill the drives and partitions...more along the lines of using Debug to run a low-level format...the more advanced techies here can help with that.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I have been advised to use a product called "Partition Magic" (which I haven't tried). It's not cheap but supposed to be good. Check the version to see if it's compatible with W2000.

[Keith in Iowa]

You need to run fdisk, recreate partitions, reformat, and reinstall Win2K & software.

[hos46]

Do what I did. Buy a new computer with Windows 2000 already installed and save yourself a lot of grief.

[Schnucki]

Just boot it with a SuSE Linux installation CD. ;)

[The Human G-Nome]

your problem might not be your hardrive... it could just as easily be a motherboard issue. if your system has ever overheated or sounded that annoying alarm, you are now on a very slippery slope.

[rightisright]

If the Windows 2000 CD is bootable, just Set your system BIOS to boot off the CD. Once you get into the Disk Manager, just delete all existing partitions, create one nice partition, and format it NTFS.

[goldstategop]

You should have installed Windows XP on a home computer system. Windows 2000 isn't meant for them and most computer manufacturers don't support upgrades to Win 2000 for home computers, except for certain home laptops. I'm running Windows XP and am very happy with it. Its really user friendly.

[notaliberal]

For sure you will be paid a visit by the posting police...I think I hear one of them knocking on the door.

[The Human G-Nome]

XP is great except for the countless compatability issues. I'd wait a few more months for the next service pack before making the same mistake I did.

[paul544]

When you installed Win2k, did you set it up for dual boot? Do you want to save what is on your Win98 drive? If not your best bet is to wipe out the whole thing and create a new drive in NTFS. The only reasonable way you could have lost all that space is if you set it up for a dual boot with the Win98 OS running FAT32 and your Win2k running NTFS.

Just wipe the sucker.

[gatorgriz]

Funny you should ask about this... Just tonight I upgraded my PC here at home from NT 4.0 to 2000 Professional. What I did was hit the F2 key to get into system setup and changed which drive boots first, from the hard drive to the CD, where I had my new 2000 disk... Rebooted and voila I'm operating off the CD and was able to get rid of every single one of those nasty partions and install 2000. It was a snap! Good Luck!

[ProudGOP]

the new OS was installed right on top of my existing OS.

It's always a good idea to reformat before you upgrade and as other posters have commented, removing the partitions (and adding at least 1 back) is the best way to do this.

But since you have already installed Win 2k, you may want to run system file checker (sfc). It is a command line utility that tells you whether the OS files have been changed and can restore them if necessary (you need your installation media).

So out of 10G hard drive, it showed, I have only 1.8G hard drive, because I have installed three 2000's on top of each other.

This is pretty odd. In Win2k, you need to run the disk Manager before you can see a partition. I would bet you have multiple partitions on that disk but you haven't run Disk Manager yet. Of course if you remove the partitions and re-add only 1, you won't have this problem.

[RaceBannon]

You are in for a surprise with other items, too. I had to get a new CD rom because it didnt like WIN2000. Also, I had to re-install all my core goodies, like WINFAX, my CAD programs, I needed a new modem...

Remember, WIN2000 is based on WINDOWS NT software, so all your regular windows stuff may not run on it! It was an eye-opener for me!

[goldstategop]

Only problems are with my Logitech keyboard and Wingman Extreme Digital gaming software. Hopefully the next versions will be more compatible with Windows XP. OK so it wasn't perfect but its worked right out of the box without those service pack releases. And what I've just said shows third party vendors have to release more fixes this time than Microsoft. For once that's good news for a change to have an operating system that lets you stay up for weeks without having to constantly reboot. Redmond should have gotten this right years ago but what can I say better late than never.

[philetus]

I have Win 2000 Pro in both of my home computers with no compatability problems and they work great.

[philetus]

You either had a really obscure, obsolete, discontinued CD Rom or you didn`t search hard enough for a driver.

[endZT]

s/SuSE/RedHat/
:)
Just kidding, any linux install disk (RedHat/SuSE/even Mandrake I think) will let you nuke those partitions and have leave a blank disk for some Microsoft OS to mutiliate. :)