Need to format a hard drive in Windows XP as a bootable FAT32 drive

[RaiderJ]

Ok, I have an older laptop (P166) that can only boot from a floppy disk or a hard drive. Since I have no floppy disk for it, I need to format the hard drive in my main computer running WinXP. Is there a tool that will let me format the hard drive as a system/bootable drive?

If WinXP has one, I can't find it under the Computer Management icon or under the Command Prompt. I can't imagine this should be hard.... what am I missing?

 

[DaveSimmons]

To be bootable it needs an operating system: DOS, Windows, linux, whatever.

Easiest is probably to download a Win98SE boot disk from bootdisk.com.

Disconnect your other hard drives so the laptop drive is the only one connected

Boot from the floppy. If the laptop drive has never been formatted you'll need to run FDISK to partition it.

From the DOS prompt type FORMAT C: /S

If you plan to install from CD you'll also need to copy files including CD drivers to the C: drive, probably to a folder C:\DOS

MD C : DOS
COPY *.* C : DOS

(remove spaces before/after ":" )

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
To be bootable it needs an operating system: DOS, Windows, linux, whatever.

Easiest is probably to download a Win98SE boot disk from bootdisk.com.

Disconnect your other hard drives so the laptop drive is the only one connected

Boot from the floppy. If the laptop drive has never been formatted you'll need to run FDISK to partition it.

From the DOS prompt type FORMAT C: /S

If you plan to install from CD you'll also need to copy files including CD drivers to the C: drive, probably to a folder C:\DOS

MD C : DOS
COPY *.* C : DOS

(remove spaces before/after ":" )

All of that would work, but is there a way to do what I've bolded above from Windows itself? Taking apart my computer to connect my laptop drive to do all that would be a real pain (have a media center computer).

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: RaiderJ
I need to format the hard drive in my main computer running WinXP.

then what did you mean by this if the drive is not attached to your main computer?

Did you really mean "format the laptop's own drive which is running XP" or what?

That won't work because Format /S requires the source drive to still exist after the format so that the system files can be copied from it., which would mean reading from the C: drive that has just been erased.

Or are you saying you want to use the laptop to format a desktop drive that you've somehow connected to it?

Please start over explaining what drive you want to format and what it is connected to now.

 

[RaiderJ]

The drive I want to format is from a laptop. I'd like to format that drive in another computer (running XP). I have the drive I'd like to format connected by a USB enclosure. Once that drive is formatted as a FAT32 system disk, I will remove it from the USB enclosure and put it back in the laptop, allowing me to boot from that disk.

Does that make sense? Windows XP will let me format the disk as FAT32, but won't let me make it bootable, which is the "/s" switch in the format command.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The USB enclosure complicates things, it doesn't look like XP's CMD version of format offers /s and a standard DOS boot floppy won't have USB drivers.

Since it's a 2.5" drive you'd also need a pin/power adapter to attach it to the main system's IDE port.

If you want to do some trial and error instead of attaching to the IDE port: USB drive in DOS

 

[RaiderJ]

Blah - this is such a pain! I think I'll just mess with it later (and just connect it straight to the motherboard).

Thanks for your help!