reformatting question?

[driggers]

well this isnt what i would call hardware to go under on-topic and its not highly technical either...so?

okay so ive prolly done it 4-5 times, but its been about a year (i know, long time).

if yall could just give me the basic steps of what to do (in DOS) i dont want to forget something or mess something up. and what kind of stuff i'll need, like a floppy with drivers on it or something like that? windows startup disk right?

thanks.

 

[Electric Amish]

What OS will you be installing? Win2k or XP you can just do by booting to the CD.

Win98:

Backup

boot to bootable floppy

run FDISK to create/delete partitions

format

 

[chin311]

if its xp, just boot to the cd and itll do everything

otherwise, set to boot from floppy, then:

ms dos startup disk or win98 startup disk

fdisk

format c

 

[Koing]

Backup important things.

Boot to cd (have the os cd in the cd rom)

Then install from there.

Thats what I do with Win2kpro. The partitions and formats are done that way for me.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: Koing
Backup important things.

Boot to cd (have the os cd in the cd rom)

Then install from there.

Thats what I do with Win2kpro. The partitions and formats are done that way for me.

Especially if you're going with NTFS.... I don't even know if you can do NTFS formatting from DOS. I assume you'd need some other specialty app.

 

[Harvey]

The fastest and best backup for an entire drive is Norton Ghost. It makes a working image copy of your entire drive to another one. When (not if) your current drive dies, just pop the Ghosted drive into your system, and keep going. You'll still be out the price of another backup drive, but you won't lose anything as long as your backup is current.

Ghost can be purchased separately, but it's also part of Norton System Works Pro. I see legit OEM copies of NSW Pro 2002 and 2003 at local swap meets for around $20.

You need the version that comes with NSW 2002 or newer For XP. It helps if you have a pair of matched drives (same make, model, capacity, etc.). Also, get a Mobile Rack. It's a trey and drawer system that mounts in a 5 1/4" bay and allows you to plug in a trey that holds a 3 1/2" IDE drive. You boot from a DOS floppy with GHOSTPE.EXE (the executable prog) and a mouse driver and run it. Depending on the size of your drive, you can back up your whole system in about the time it takes to shower and clean up for the day. I know of NO cheaper or faster backup system.

 

[driggers]

Ill be using Windows ME. Im sending everything I want to backup over my home network as of now to this computer.

I just boot up in DOS, with the Windows Start Up disk. and run fdisk? delete the old partition, and make a new one. then i can just put in the winME cdrom?

and if i cant find the winME ill just use winXP so ill i need to do there is put the cdrom in...and ill have the options to do it?

 

[Harvey]

GO BACK! IT'S A TRAP! If you have a choice, DO NOT use ME. If you need real DOS, or your machine is too old or slow to handle XP, or you have some other legacy app that needs it, Win 98 SE (with all critical and security updates) is far more stable and reliable. Otherwise, go for XP or 2K.