partitioning hard drive

[fourtwenty]

I am having problems getting a hard drive completely partitioned. I have a 6.4G quantum HD, and I am starting from scratch. When I try to boot from windows ME disk it encounters problems writing to the hard drive, so I can't format the entire 6.4G as one partition. but if I use fdisk first to create a partition Windows ME installs fine, but I don't want to have to have a bunch of 2G sections of my hard drive. Obviously I'm not completely sure of what I am talking about, so any insite would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[AC]

You should be able to fdisk the drive as a single FAT32 partition and format the whole thing.

What do you mean by "it encounters problems writing to the hard drive"? What's the error it gives you?

 

[fourtwenty]

Is this possible without reformatting the whole disk? I have already installed windows ME and a bunch of other stuff in the 2G partition. I was under the impression that you could only partition a hard drive in 2G sections (atleast that was what I was told the only other time I built a computer) but by booting and formatting under windows you could do the whole thing. I don't get an error code or anything when trying to boot from the windows CD, it just says it had an error writing to the hard drive and gives you the option of trying again or ignoring. If you try again the same error message comes up and if you ignore the monitor goes all fuzzy.

 

[CaseTragedy]

Is the harddrive in LBA?

 

[Staver]

You are limited to 2G partitions in FAT16. You can convert your current drive to FAT32 without reformatting. There should be a drive conversion utility in the Accessories Menu area.

 

[Motorheader]

Yes, but then you have to get the drive to use the rest of the partitions and expand it as one - you need an outside utility like PartionMagic or Partition Commander.

 

[HotWire]

From the Dos prompt A type Format C:/S this will format the whole drive and make it bootable..........using a bootable windows start up disc of course

 

[fourtwenty]

Ok, problem solved. I deleted the original partition and just booted from, and installed, win98. For some reason when I tried to boot from WinME I would get an "error writing to the hard drive". I guess my aunt gets Win98 instead of ME. Thanks for the suggestions guys.