How to partition in WinXP?

[geno]

I'm trying to format a drive that used to be part of a RAID stripe and for some reason, the format makes it about 50% of the way through before Windows tells me it can't format the drive. I'm wondering if deleting and redifining a partition on the drive will help me, but I can't find anything in WinXP that'll let me partition - going to command.com and trying fdisk doesn't work - what's the deal?

 

[Matthias99]

You *can* use FDISK (and that's your only choice from a boot disk), but I don't think it normally comes installed with XP. What you want to do is to go into Control Panels/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management. You should be able to repartition the disk from there. I believe you can also do it from the repair console, which you can get to from a bootable XP CD.

 

[corkyg]

The only way I know to do that in a non-destructive mode with an exisiting XP installation is with Partition Magic 8. Any use of FDISK will destroy all data on the disk. That is why XP will not let you do it because it is not programmed to self-destruct.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

you might have a problem with the drive, have you run the manufacturers diagnostics? (data-life guard tools, maxblaster, etc.) I've have a lot of luck low-level formating drives with that problem.

 

[lucky9]

If I read what you want/need to do correctly and the data etc on that disk isn't needed, the low level format will do what you need. Just MaxBlast or one of the others. I've used MaxBlast for years with no problems on any disk. But Maxtor isn't the only disk maker with this sort of program, use what ever. Just start it and go to bed. It'll usually take about one hour for each twenty gig.:wine: