Cannot format C drive

[Jamie]

I am trying to format my Win XP Pro PC.
I have a single hard drive, separated into 2 partitions;
C and D drives.
When I boot up in with a Win98 bootup disk,
At the A:\ when I type dir/w, it shows me the contents of
my floppy drive.
At the C:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of my D drive.
At the D:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the RAM-
drive.
At the E:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the CD
drive.

Question is, where is my C drive?
Cos when I do a "format c:", it only formats my D drive
and not my C drive!

Help anybody? Please...?

 

[peter]

Would that C drive have an NTFS file system.....which 98 cannot read!!
Try doing a reinstall with the XP CD and formatting during the process
maybe back to FAT32??
peter

 

[RonK]

Set your computer to boot from the cdrom with the XP cd in it. You can then
format and install XP.

 

[Malke]

I am trying to format my Win XP Pro PC.
I have a single hard drive, separated into 2 partitions;
C and D drives.
When I boot up in with a Win98 bootup disk,
At the A:\ when I type dir/w, it shows me the contents of
my floppy drive.
At the C:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of my D drive.
At the D:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the RAM-
drive.
At the E:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the CD
drive.

Question is, where is my C drive?
Cos when I do a "format c:", it only formats my D drive
and not my C drive!

Help anybody? Please...?

Is the hard drive seen in the BIOS?

Malke

 

[Dale Richards]

I am trying to format my Win XP Pro PC.
I have a single hard drive, separated into 2 partitions;
C and D drives.
When I boot up in with a Win98 bootup disk,
At the A:\ when I type dir/w, it shows me the contents of
my floppy drive.
At the C:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of my D drive.
At the D:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the RAM-
drive.
At the E:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the CD
drive.

Question is, where is my C drive?
Cos when I do a "format c:", it only formats my D drive
and not my C drive!

Help anybody? Please...?

It sounds like your C: drive uses the NTFS file system, which cannot be read
(or formatted) by a Win98 boot disk. Try booting from the Windows XP CD
instead.

 

[Jeff]

Hi,

make sure you Win98 boot disk has Fdisk on it. When you
boot up, use the Fdisk. Go to option 4 to show all
partitions, you should see one that is not recognised,
that will be the C drive with NTFS. Choose the delete
partition, then there is a choice to delete primary
logical, extended and I think one more. You either use
the extended or if the 3rd choice is available, you can
use that to delete the unknown partition.

Jeff

 

[Michael Stevens]

I am trying to format my Win XP Pro PC.
I have a single hard drive, separated into 2 partitions;
C and D drives.
When I boot up in with a Win98 bootup disk,
At the A:\ when I type dir/w, it shows me the contents of
my floppy drive.
At the C:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of my D drive.
At the D:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the RAM-
drive.
At the E:\ prompt, it shows me the contents of the CD
drive.

Question is, where is my C drive?
Cos when I do a "format c:", it only formats my D drive
and not my C drive!

Help anybody? Please...?

One of the options in the link below should do the trick.
Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address box
if using the web based newsgroup.
Format XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/format_XP.htm
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Alex Nichol]

It sounds like your C: drive uses the NTFS file system, which cannot be read
(or formatted) by a Win98 boot disk. Try booting from the Windows XP CD
instead.

And to add more explicit directions: You do it as part of a reinstall
of the system after booting the XP CD direct. Enter Setup, and after
the license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm
where, hit ESC; select and delete the current partition or partitions
(There is no need to touch the second one, D: if you don't want to
include all the space in one) and make a new RAW one to be formatted at
the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one