Setting up new HD, what tools does everyone use?

[echolune]

I've run in to this problem quite often; there is a system that needs a new HD installed, greater than 2 Gigs, and there is no OS cd or disks to use, just some crazy disks that restore a HD with the original programs (HP and Compaq stuff). What I'd like to use, ideally, is a floppy boot disk that has some kind of Fat32 partition/format utility on it, but I just can't seem to find anything that works consistiently (ie, sometimes my boot disks won't recognize the new drive). Just curious if there is something out there that everyone uses, but that I've managed to miss. The only thing I've found that works every time for finding all existing disks and partitions is the Win XP setup, but it gets kind of annoying having to shut down the computer right after it formats, and right before it installs system data.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Try www.bootdisk.com. They have downloadable bootdisks that fit most needs.

 

[Paulson]

Get a win98 bootdisk from bootdisk.com, then boot up and do fdisk... If you want to install win2k or later it will automatically convert from FAT32 to NTFS if you want NTFS...

 

[echolune]

Cool, thanks, that site looks to be just what I was looking for.

Maybe next time I'll type in www.(the stuff I'm looking for).com and maybe find it