Need help formatting NTFS drive

[beaker429]

I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. I want to format the C drive and format it so that I can install Windows 98 SE. I have been unsuccessful so far. I have tried to use fdisk, says not supported.

If any one could post to this and tell me hoe to format the C drive back to FAT32, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

 

[fitzhue]

Could you be more specific about it being "not supported"
What does the error message say?
Did you try to format it first and then fdisk?

 

[beaker429]

I tried to use a win 98se startup disk to get to the fdisk command. It would not run fdisk, would not format C.

 

[fitzhue]

Could it be possible that the boot disk is corrupt?
Did windows even load off the startup disk?
I'll look in my windows 2000 booklet to see if i can find something

 

[fitzhue]

btw, why do u want to get rid of windows 2000, i just installed it and absolutely love it.

 

[danielshoes]

This is a simple procedure. Follow these steps:
1) Get a W98SE boot floppy (you can create it with a computer running W98). It contains FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM. This is all you need;
2) Boot with this floppy;
3) Run FDISK and remove the NTFS partition. (you will LOSE ALL YOUR DATA!)
4) Create a new partition (It will be, obviously, FAT32);
5) Exit FDISK, reboot. (do not remove the boot floppy);
6) Run FORMAT C:

That's all folks!

 

[beaker429]

I tried exactly what danielshoes suggested. No go. Would not format the C drive or delete the active partition via fdisk.

 

[fitzhue]

What exactly does it say, does it give some sort of specific error?

 

[Hawk]

So you don't care about anything on the C: drive right? Easy, just boot off of your Win2k cd. "Pretend" you are installing Win2k again, keep going through the installation process, and then when you hit the menu where they ask you where to install and what kind of drive, choose:

"Format to FAT32" and once the process is at about 10%, take the CD out (while it's still formatting) and then when it's done, just tell it to quit and you have a FAT32 C: again. Then install Win98. Hope you understood what I was trying to say.

 

[beaker429]

I do now...will try tonight...thanks

 

[jjlsevil]

This is it...you need to do this
fdisk
but use this command with a win95/98/me boot disk
fdisk /mbr

that's it....that's what i did
that's all it takes

another thing that will work is getting a maxtor blast disk. that'll clear it if fdisk /mbr doesn't work.

hey...feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. I've had this problem before. And i have overcome it many times.

sevilla_jjl@hotmail.com

 

[TatSteeL]

why don't you just pull out your floppy disk that come with your hard drive when you bought it. You can boot it with the floppy disk that come with your HD and do almost anything you like: from deleting partition some even have image drive like maxtor diamond. the procedure that danielshoes gives out it should work pretty good don't know why it didn't work for you. If you don't have the disk then go to your manufactor and download it am pretty sure they have, unless you get a really old and crappy HD.

 

[sula]

use FDISK and delete "other" partition

 

[Mr. Burns]

beaker429 - Perhaps I'm mistaken, but if I understand you correctly then currently your C drive is formatted NTSF. If this is the case, a win9x boot disk will NOT work at all. I suggest following Hawk's suggestion -- it should do the trick nicely.

 

[beaker429]

Thanks for all of your input. I have successfully formatted the drive back to FAT32 and installed win98se. Thanks again.

 

[beaker429]

Got the HDD formatted to FAT32, but still having problems. Used the HDD install utility from manufacturer, but I think that there is something wrong with the HDD now. When I installed win98se, said could not find secur32.dll and another file. I found these files on the net and put them on a floppy disk and continued with the install. Now I can't seem to get the computer to connect to the internet. Device manager says that the 3-Com nic is there and that the drivers are correct, but can't connect to the Internet or to my intranet either.

I have installed microsoft client and printer and file sharing also. This is getting a little ridiculous. If anyone has any insight, I would gretaly aooreciate it. Thanks.

 

[beaker429]

TTT

 

[DDDavey]

Bump...same trouble.

I have WinMe on my C: partition as FAT32, and Win2K on my D: partition. I made a mistake installing 2K, and it made the whole rest of my HDD NTFS, when I only wanted 1.5 gig NTFS

If I boot of the Me bootdisk, and do FDISK, it says there are no logical drives in the extended partition. So when I go to delete the extended partition,it says cannot delete it while logical drives still exist. WHAT A PITA!!!

Beaker...what thing worked for you to format it? I'm gonna try fdisk /mbr now...this really sux!

Thanks,

Dave

 

[Joemonkey]

<< So when I go to delete the extended partition,it says cannot delete it while logical drives still exist >>



delete the logical drives within the extended partition, i'm pretty sure there is an option for that

 

[dr0p0ut]

if the partition is ntfs, fdisk's deletion other partition will not work
if you win2k os is still working, boot into win2k, and use disk manerger to delete partition, reboot. afterward boot up with win98disk,
use fdisk to format the drive. however, once you formate drive c:, you will need to do some work to get win2k to work again because
the bootloader is in drive c: (the one you just formated).