HELP! I can't format drive C!

[Coolie]

I'm trying to format my hard drive to do a clean install of 2000. I downloaded a boot disk, it boots from A:, installs the cdroms, and goes to DOS. From there, I can't change to drive c:. It says "invalid drive specification." I can change to r: and s: (my cdroms) but not c: or d: (my hard drives). What's the deal? I've never had this happen before! I even downloaded a different startup disk with the same results. Help??

 

[FUBAR]

Were those drives partitioned as NTFS for win2k previously? If so, a standard dos boot disk will not be able to recognize those partitions.

Besides that... you should be able to have the win2k cd format your drives any way you want them anyway... you just have to read the prompts VERY carefully and make sure that you define all your drives rather than have windows just make it all one large partition or leave as is.

 

[TssTech2]

Try using format /s to make the C: drive a system disk.....or if that doesn't work, try using fdisk and seeing how much of the hard drive is being used for drive C. If you used the Win2000 startup disks, then fdisk might detect the disks as unknown file system instead of Fat32....this is because the win2000 boot disk sometimes formats the drive as an NTFS (NT File System) drive.... These drives are not accessible with dos, an NT system (NT, 2000, XP) has to be loaded in order to see the data.

 

[Coolie]

Thanks guys - You're both right! I didn't even think about my file system being NTFS. I haven't had to format since I loaded 2000 over a year ago.

 

[monopoly]

Try to use the FDISK /MBR first. Then see if your Format C: command will work.