How to format a slave drive to NTFS ?

[leeland]

well I recently changed from a FAT32 drive setup to a NTSF setup...which went fine...in XP setup I deleted my old partitions, I have a 40 gig drive and an 80 gig drive. I installed XP on the 40 gig drive and once it was all done installing and I got into windows it didn't recognize my second drive....I am assuming since I deleted the second partition...


So I went back into windows setup and recreated a partition like I was going to install XP on the second drive( I didnt) and then formatted it to NTFS, once it got close I waited till it was going to copy files and then I rebooted

How would you normally format a secondary partition in windows XP....I couldn't find an option to format secondary drives when I was setting up windows the first time....


do you do this during windows setup or can I actually format a secondary drive within windows to NTFS?

sorry for the silly question, I am used to formatting in dos


thanks in advance

leeland

 

[skarydrunkguy]

you can format a drive in windows explorer if you right click on the drive and select format. it gives you options for fat32, ntfs, etc... at least thats how i do it in winxppro.

 

[leeland]

well here is the deal, when I originally deleted the partitions, so I could repartition my drives from a three drive to a two drive setup....I got the first drive to format since it was the primary drive....and when I got into windows it didn't even recognize the second drive...


Like I said ealier I got it to work but it was a jimmy rigged way....I am looking for the right way to format secondary drives


How do you get the secondary drive to create a new partition and then format it to NTFS during windows setup...

 

[AFB]

Try right clicking on my computet and click manage. Click disk mangement and you should be able to do it there.

 

[skarydrunkguy]

Originally posted by: leeland
well here is the deal, when I originally deleted the partitions, so I could repartition my drives from a three drive to a two drive setup....I got the first drive to format since it was the primary drive....and when I got into windows it didn't even recognize the second drive...


Like I said ealier I got it to work but it was a jimmy rigged way....I am looking for the right way to format secondary drives


How do you get the secondary drive to create a new partition and then format it to NTFS during windows setup...

You might need to use fdisk in dos first to get windows to recognize the drive (or do a low level format in the bios if absolutely necessary). I've never had a problem with windows not recognizing a drive... make sure your secondary IDE controller isn't turned off or something. Usually, windows will recognize just about anything you plug into it no matter the format or size or whatever, and then you can reformat with the right click thing. Sorry if that doesn't help.

 

[leeland]

well I can't try any of your responses, Like i said I have gotten it fixed for now, I am looking for a good way to do this in the future


Lets say today I bought a 200GB drive...brought it home and wanted to use it as a slave drive....


I have a computer with a C: drive and XP pro on it already....how do you format the new drive ?


do you just hook it up on the same IDE channel....(this is how I have mine setup since i have two cd roms)

let the BIOS detect it

And some how windows XP is supposed to recognize this unformatted drive ??? this is where I am confused


thanks

leeland


p.s. I know what you could do I guess is take out the regular drive and then put the new drive in and format it as a master drive....but to me that seems ass backwards and I am sure there is a bettter way to do this process

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
Try right clicking on my computet and click manage. Click disk mangement and you should be able to do it there.

Thats the answer. You can go in there and look at whats going on right now.

 

[mikecel79]

All this information can be found in the XP help file. Do a search for managing disks and then click on Disk Management. It will show you how to activate and format your disks. There is no need to low level format or use fdisk with Windows XP.

The help service in XP is very good. It contains the answers to most user's questions.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: DaZ

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
Try right clicking on my computet and click manage. Click disk mangement and you should be able to do it there.

Thats the answer. You can go in there and look at whats going on right now.

Definitely, unless you have other partition managing software (ie Partition Magic), this is how you do it. This "right click" way will never work if you haven't already formatted the drive, in the "My Computer" window the only thing you see are valid file systems.

 

[Nando]

 

[Nando]

Try using the utilities disk that came with the hard drive or go to the web site of your HD and download the lates utilities available. This utility will see that a HD need to be configure base on OS and will ask if you want to format it with NTSF or FAT 32. This is easy and fast.

PS: Sorry for the empty post previously sent.

 

[leeland]

Originally posted by: DaZ

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
Try right clicking on my computet and click manage. Click disk mangement and you should be able to do it there.

Thats the answer. You can go in there and look at whats going on right now.

So you saying that If I were to basically go and hook up a brand new harddrive as a slave drive, I would be able to go into my computer....(which I did and I didn't see the drive) and go to disc management and the new slave drive should be there....even though it hasn't been partitioned or formatted ?



thanks

leeland

 

[Rob G.]

>> " I would be able to go into my computer....(which I did and I didn't see the drive) and go to disc management and the new slave drive should be there....even though it hasn't been partitioned or formatted ?"

The reaon that you didn't see it before is BECAUSE it hasn't been partitioned/formatted.

The OS is seeing the hardware alright, but it's not until you partion and format that My Computer will actually see a 'drive'.

 

[kamper]

Right, this actually has nothing to do with My Computer. The place you see it is the Computer Management console, the Disk Management section, to be specific. It just so happens that the easiest way to get there is by right clicking on My Computer. You can also get there with Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.

Sorry if I'm beating this to death, but My Computer doesn't see any hard drives. It sees file systems and makes them look like hard drives.

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: leeland

Originally posted by: DaZ

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
Try right clicking on my computet and click manage. Click disk mangement and you should be able to do it there.

Thats the answer. You can go in there and look at whats going on right now.

So you saying that If I were to basically go and hook up a brand new harddrive as a slave drive, I would be able to go into my computer....(which I did and I didn't see the drive) and go to disc management and the new slave drive should be there....even though it hasn't been partitioned or formatted ?



thanks

leeland

As just said above, you need to RIGHT CLICK on the My Computer Icon, then select MANAGE COMPUTER, then open DISK MANAGEMENT. You will see your new un-partitioned drive listed there (provided your bios detected it), you can then partition it and format it.

 

[leeland]

Thanks guys I think I understand now what you are talking about...especially about the My Computer part....I will have to give it a try next time I mess around with a drive



thanks again

leeland