Deleting Partitions and Formatting HDD

[Ameer K.]

Ive been facing a hard disk boot problem for about a week
now, where i cant boot to my HDD because of a disk boot
failure. Ive decided to just format my HDD and start
over. Im using XP professional and I have my HDD
partitioned into 3 (one primary and two logical) and I
did this using the Western Digital software that came
with my HDD. However, Im alittle new to working with
partitions. My question is how do I correctly go about
clearing my HDD? Im not concerend about backing up
anything becuase besides the operating system my HDD is
basically blank. Do I first delete the two logical
partitions and the extended parition using disk
management in XP? Then how do i delete the final primary
partition? Can I do this through windows or must I boot
using the XP CD and follow some instruction through
there? Must I format the HDD even after deleting all the
partitions? And finally, after everything has been
deleted and im installing windows again, do you
recommmend I configure my HDD's partitions through the
windows installlation or through the western digital
software? Thanks alot.

Ameeer

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Ive been facing a hard disk boot problem for about a week
now, where i cant boot to my HDD because of a disk boot
failure. Ive decided to just format my HDD and start
over. Im using XP professional and I have my HDD
partitioned into 3 (one primary and two logical) and I
did this using the Western Digital software that came
with my HDD. However, Im alittle new to working with
partitions. My question is how do I correctly go about
clearing my HDD? Im not concerend about backing up
anything becuase besides the operating system my HDD is
basically blank. Do I first delete the two logical
partitions and the extended parition using disk
management in XP? Then how do i delete the final primary
partition? Can I do this through windows or must I boot
using the XP CD and follow some instruction through
there? Must I format the HDD even after deleting all the
partitions? And finally, after everything has been
deleted and im installing windows again, do you
recommmend I configure my HDD's partitions through the
windows installlation or through the western digital
software? Thanks alot.

Ameeer

Before reboring your PC, try to determine if the problem
is restricted to the boot environment or if there are deep-
seated problems with your installation. Here is how you
can do it:
- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

If you still wish to format your primary partition then
boot your machine with your WinXP CD. You will get
a choice of destination. Select C:, and allow this
partition to be formatted. There is no need to repartition
the rest of your disk.

If you really want to start with a clean slate, boot the
machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then use delpart.exe from http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm
to delete all partitions.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

You could also try this: (and I know some is similar to Pagasus, but I
agree with him. Ok?)

Boot off your Windows XP CD. If you don't want the partitinos to stay
there, you can remove them during the Windows XP Installation process.
Simply delete them all, then it will show one unallocated file space.
Choose that as your destination and it will offer you 4 options of how
to format. I would suggest NTFS (Quick). Then continue with the install
as normal. If you want to keep the partitions, during the Windows XP
Installation process, select the first partition and format it (again I
would suggest NTFS (Quick). Continue as normal and once inside Windows
XP, you can format each of the other partitions if that is what you want
to do, or you can leave them alone. You can also make them into one
partition using Disk Management (Click Start-Run-Type compmgmt.msc and
click OK). You have quite a few options

Nathan McNulty

Ive been facing a hard disk boot problem for about a week
now, where i cant boot to my HDD because of a disk boot
failure. Ive decided to just format my HDD and start
over. Im using XP professional and I have my HDD
partitioned into 3 (one primary and two logical) and I
did this using the Western Digital software that came
with my HDD. However, Im alittle new to working with
partitions. My question is how do I correctly go about
clearing my HDD? Im not concerend about backing up
anything becuase besides the operating system my HDD is
basically blank. Do I first delete the two logical
partitions and the extended parition using disk
management in XP? Then how do i delete the final primary
partition? Can I do this through windows or must I boot
using the XP CD and follow some instruction through
there? Must I format the HDD even after deleting all the
partitions? And finally, after everything has been
deleted and im installing windows again, do you
recommmend I configure my HDD's partitions through the
windows installlation or through the western digital
software? Thanks alot.

Ameeer

Before reboring your PC, try to determine if the problem
is restricted to the boot environment or if there are deep-
seated problems with your installation. Here is how you
can do it:
- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

If you still wish to format your primary partition then
boot your machine with your WinXP CD. You will get
a choice of destination. Select C:, and allow this
partition to be formatted. There is no need to repartition
the rest of your disk.

If you really want to start with a clean slate, boot the
machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then use delpart.exe from http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm
to delete all partitions.

 

[Richard Urban]

Using the W.D. utility may well be the cause of you problem as Windows XP
does not really like drive overlay utility type of partitioning.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Nathan McNulty]

That has been my experience in the past as well. I was running a 160 GB
WD HD and I had to use Windows XP to partition and format as the utility
cause XP to get all screwy on me

Nathan McNulty