can i take my 80gig from ntsf to fat 32 via format without a cdrom?

[SETiCruncherXy]

a buddy gave me a 80 gig drive that he was using for xp because mine crashed... he formatted it and sent it to me..
i couldnt get win98 fdisk to create any partitions nor read the existing ones.. as i expected.... but i tried for the life of me to get it back to fat32 via win98se and start up floppy.. nogo even with partition magic.. so my only hope was to run xp pro onto it and get my machine back up and running... everything is fine .. but i literally hate xp.. i want 98 back.... my xp pro cdrom doesnt allow me to format with fat32.. only ntsf....
i looked on the net for almost an hour and couldnt find any reliable way to get it back to fat32..
is there any hope for this drive?
any help is appreciated...

oh yeah..i was thinking of joining your seti@home team
someone cought me in an irc room and pointed me this way...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Boot the XP cd, and when you get to the partitioning part, delete all partitions. You should be able to make a 32GB fat32 partition on it with the disk. Then see if the win98 fdisk can read it.

Personally, I'll be happy when win98 officially dies.

 

[SETiCruncherXy]

i tried that.. it only makes an ntfs partition....
then my fdisk still wont read it... ill try again maybe i did something wrong the first dozen times lol.. but ill wait till the morning to del partitions...

 

[n0cmonkey]

The XP disk is supposed to be able to make small fat32 partitions, not sure why the option wouldn't come up for you...

 

[SETiCruncherXy]

i have the corporate edition xp pro :S

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SETiCruncherXy
i have the corporate edition xp pro :S

That shouldn't matter. If the company that is supplying you the software wants fat32 they should be able to use fat32. Definitely a waste though.

 

[sharkeeper]

Use the Win98SE boot disk, start up and run FDISK. Create partitions as needed.

Reboot again with the boot disk and use the format command. This will make a full sized FAT32 partition. ALL partitions 32GB and higher will be NTFS by default in WinXP. (as they should be!)

Personally, I'll be happy when win98 officially dies.

Amen!

Cheers!

 

[ntsf]

did someone say my name? :evil:

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Uh... change the theme?

/ no other ideas

 

[bacillus]

the win98 startup boot disk should do.
using fdisk, choose to delete the non-dos partition then repartition & format.
alternatively you can use delpart.exe to wipe the partition(s)