Embarrassing question: What the proper way (syntax) to format drives in DOS...I forgot

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
3
76
:eek: Asking this question on these forums is almost as bad as having your pants split in the middle of a packed shopping mall...not that it's happened to me.

I'm gonna setup a RAID 0 array w/two drives. I would imagine that I cannot use the Maxblast formatting utility disk that comes with the HD's, so how do I format them and specify FAT16 or 32?

Also, what does RAID like better; 16 or 32?

Thanks so much...I'm SO embarrassed...this dates back to the days of the Apple IIe...that's the last time (that I can remembeer) that I did anything in DOS. :eek:
 

Jhereg

Senior member
Jan 23, 2000
260
0
0
Create a startup disk in Win 95 or Win 98 first if you want to have FAT 32 partitions

To do that :
Start=> Run=> Format A: /s

Just make sure you have a floppy in the drive ;-)

Then go to the the C:\Windows\Command\ folder and copy Fdisk and Format to the floppy

Reboot the computer
Then :
A: fdisk
That will bring up a long paragraph in which it asks whether you want to support large disk ... what this really means is do you want FAT or FAT 32..
For FAT 32 choose "y"

Create a Primary Partition

Reboot the machine
then at the prompt

A: format C:

done !
 

wyvrn

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
10,074
0
0
Don't be embarassed, only stupid questions are the ones that are not asked.

You need fdisk, you can get it off of a Win98 bootup floppy. Boot to it and you will have an a:\ prompt. Type FDISK, and say yes to "enable large disk support?" if you want FAT32 support, N if you do not. Then you be presented with 5 options. First one is Create partition. Select it, then make a primary partition. Follow the prompts (I do not know whether you want to partition these up). Option 5 on the first menu should be to switch disks (to your second hard drive). Once you do that, fdisking is the same.

After all that, reboot. The command to format the drives is format <drive letter>, where drive letter is letter of your drives. C:\ is first one, and d:\ will be second one.
 

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
3
76
Thanks guys. The schoolbell has rung. (Mike runs out of school building towards home to experiment with his new-found knowledge)

One part of my question still remains though: Is it better to have FAT 16 or 32 if your gonna run a RAID 0 array? Thanks much.
 

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
3
76
Thanks Xfiles69, Konichiwa &amp; Quaggoth. I need to know before I started messing w/it. I'm gonna copy down that screen verbatim, this way I'm good to go.