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Reformatting in Win2K???

K

kcbass

Golden Member
I'm changing out a lot of hardware in my computer, and I'm gonna need to reformat my computer. I'm running win2k, and this is the first time i've had to reformat with this OS...Since it doesn't run DOS, how do I reformat?
 
If you need to reformat your partition, then just boot to the 2k or xp cd, and I'm pretty sure there will be an option to reformat the drive. If you need to repartition your hard drive, you can do that from a win9.x floppy. Just delete all non-dos partitions, and then I always fdisk /mbr afterwards...
 
well, the thing of it is, I've got an 80GB right now that's got about 30 or 40 GB on it that I want to save, so i'll be moving it to a new drive which hasn't been formatted yet. after it's moved, I'll be reformatting the 80 to be a data drive, then moving the files from the new drive to the 80, then installing win2k to the new drive. Sounds kinda complicated, but I think it's the easiest way to go about it. Anyone care to help out?
 
I would like to attempt this project sometime this weekend, but I can't do it without a little help from other forum users. Any suggestions?
 

If you have an extra drive, you're set.

Do this:
Power off.
Pop the old drive out and set it aside.
Set the jumpers right on the new drive (master I assume) and install it.
Put your w2k CD in and boot.
Run through setup, formatting the new drive in the process (it's a step during setup - you won't miss it)
Once everything is cool, set the jumpers on the old drive (master or slave, depending of course) and put it back in. Copy your old data to a new home or somehow shuffle it where you want.

If anything goes wrong:
power off, pop the new drive out, put the old one back in and you are back where you started.
 

Oh, and to answer your original question:

You can still format in many ways just like you did in windows 9x:

Right click a drive and "format"

-or-

run format from a command prompt:
Format /? will give you a list of options.
Format C: /FS:NTFS formats the C: drive with NTFS for instance
Format D: /FS:FAT32 formats D: drive with fat32 etc...

-or-

probably the best way to fool with disks is to use Disk Manager (Right click mycomputer, select manage, then look for disk manager about half way down)
Disk manager has all the functionality of Fdisk, Format and then some. since you have two 80 gig drives you may want to investigate Mirroring (Raid-1) ...see help files for more info.

I may be a bit slow to respond, but drop me a line at smilin@indy.rr.com if you get stuck.

 
W2K gives you the opportunity to format and partition your drive. I can't even begin to count the number of times that I have booted off of my W2K CD and formatted just my "C:" partition and preserved the data on my other partitions. If you name your other partitions with a name (i.e. data, work, superslice, whatever) instead of "local disk" and give them an odd size (i.e. don't evenly distibute your disk space) then you won't make the mistake and format the wrong partition.
 
It's really not as difficult as everyone tends to make it seem... All you'll really need is to make Win2k boot diskz (there will be 4 of 'em)... Here's how ya do it, since Im not sure how advanced you are :
--------------
To create setup disks

-Insert a blank, formatted, 3.5-inch, 1.44-MB disk into the floppy disk drive.
-Insert the Windows 2000 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive.
-Click Start, and then click Run.
-In the Open box, type d:\bootdisk\makeboot a: (where d: is the drive letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive), and then click OK.
-Follow the screen prompts.
Important

You will need four blank, formatted, 3.5-inch, 1.44-MB floppy disks. Label them Setup Disk One, Setup Disk Two, Setup Disk Three, and Setup Disk Four.
Note

You can create the setup disks from a computer running any version of Windows or MS-DOS
-----------------

With this done, turn ya computer off, insert boot disc 1, then start ya comp back up... Then commence to follow the instructions... You will eventually come to a point where your computer asks you how you wish to partition your hdrive, and whether or not you wish it to convert the entire drive/partial drive to NTFS... It's suggested that you do convert to NTFS, unless you plan on using Win98/ME/95 anytime.... Thats basically it... Anymore questions involving a more detailed explanation, feel free to ask 😀
 
Well, I followed the "simple" instructions, but something seemed to go horribly wrong. My data isn't gone yet, but I can't locate it exactly. When I installed win2k, the two drives seemed to merge somehow. The data i thought was on the old drive moved to the new one, and other weird things...They're not on the raid channel, and I know all of the jumpers are set correctly, so I'm really confused. I guess i'll try it again. Any other tips?
 
Ok...I started all over. I reformatted and put win2k on the master, with the data i want preserved on the slave. When I connected the slave drive in order to transfer the data, my BIOS told me that the slave device is not ATAPI compatible...What does this mean and how can I fix it without erradicating my much needed data?
 
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