Help on an XP upgrade clean install (updated).

[uwannawhat]

I'm puting together my first computer and have a Seagate 80GB HD. I downloaded a fresh/full version of Windows 98 for PC's without windows last night but went out today and bought the XP upgrade disc.

I wanted to do a "clean" install of the XP software. So I did a format from the dos prompt to the C: drive (which is the Seagate HD). While installing the XP software I was prompted as to which area to format or delete I saw a FAT32 partition on there from Windows 98 (wanted to keep all my files NTFS) so I highlighted it and deleted it and proceeded to do the format.

However after my fresh install of Windows XP my HD is only showing 74GB of free space. Does Windows XP take up the extra 6GB? I think not. The FAT32 was the same size as the missing 6GB.

What do I do to do a "Full" format and start as if I just put a new drive in?

I tried to do a format C: from a bootable DOS floppy disc. But drive C: is not recognized?

edit: I was hoping to be able to report back if the "low format", "zero fill" & then a clean install of the Windows XP worked but that zero fill takes a loooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg time! It's been about 1/2 hour since I started it & I'm @ 6% :disgust:

Thanks.

 

[ojai00]

All hard drives lose some space based on a algorithm (I don't know what it is). My 60GB drive only gives me about 55GB. I also have a Seagate drive, and I used the utility to low-level format and do a zero-fill to erase any information on the drive. Then I set the BIOs to boot from CD. Pop the CD in, and it should load automatically. Let XP format your drive again, and you should be good to go. Hope this helps.

 

[uwannawhat]

Thank you very much ojai00. I bought an OEM HD (no software included with it). What utility did you use? Can it be downloaded from their website?

 

[NogginBoink]

Uwanna,

I think you're probably seeing two things here.

1) Hard drive manufacturers use "decimal gigabytes" (1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes) in their marketing instead of "binary gigabytes" (1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes) that the OS uses. The reason is obvious. More GB for the same number of bytes!

2) The unformatted capacity of the drive is what the mfr. advertises. However, the filesystem itself needs some of that space to organize and keep track of the filesystem. Any filesystem will have some overhead and there's nothing you can do about it.

I think that these two factors will account for your "missing" drive space.

-Noggin

 

[uwannawhat]

Thank you NogginBoink for you input. I do realize and understand what your saying. I'm still wondering if I caused any damage or corruption when I deleted that FAT32 partition?

Before I proceeded with the deletion I was warned that the partion "could" hold system files and it would not be recognizable afterwards.

 

[uwannawhat]

Did a search for the low level format utiltity @ Seagates website. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

 

[ojai00]

There should also be a CD and a floppy that comes with your drive. If you need it, PM or e-mail me, and I'll try to get it for you. Good luck.