Formatting a Hard Drive using Windows XP Home

[Guest]

I recently had my system crash and was beyond all known help to repair. I
ended up formatting the drive which started with 14 GB and once reformatted
it shows only 2 GB of storage space. I have talked with a few IT
porfessional who have told me that I can use Windows XP to reformat the drive
again and that should show the unused 12 GB partition that was lost when I
formatted the drive. When I attempted to do this I was unsuccessful, and
would like some guidance on how to do this. The system is current using 128
MB ram, and a Western Digital standard Hard Disk.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I recently had my system crash and was beyond all known help to repair. I
ended up formatting the drive which started with 14 GB and once reformatted
it shows only 2 GB of storage space. I have talked with a few IT
porfessional who have told me that I can use Windows XP to reformat the drive
again and that should show the unused 12 GB partition that was lost when I
formatted the drive. When I attempted to do this I was unsuccessful, and
would like some guidance on how to do this. The system is current using 128
MB ram, and a Western Digital standard Hard Disk.

Click Start / Run / diskmgmt.msc {OK}, then identify your problem
disk. Now delete all existing partitions on it (if this is what you
want), then create whatever partititions you require and format them.

 

[Guest]

Doing this would work if there was another Hard Drive supporting the system,
but I wouldn't try deleting partitions on a hard drive that I am working on,
unless it can be done from the CD and not booted on the hard disk.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Are you asking how to partition/format a hard disk without
using Windows XP? If so then I'm a little confused about
your Subject line. If not then please rephrase your question.

 

[Sharon F]

I recently had my system crash and was beyond all known help to repair. I
ended up formatting the drive which started with 14 GB and once reformatted
it shows only 2 GB of storage space. I have talked with a few IT
porfessional who have told me that I can use Windows XP to reformat the drive
again and that should show the unused 12 GB partition that was lost when I
formatted the drive. When I attempted to do this I was unsuccessful, and
would like some guidance on how to do this. The system is current using 128
MB ram, and a Western Digital standard Hard Disk.

Suggestions:
-Take a look in Computer Management> Disk Management. Does it show 12GB as
raw or undefined? If no, ensure that LBA is enabled in BIOS.

-Was fdisk used to create the partition? There is a point when running
fdisk that you're asked if you want to enable LBA. If you use this tool
again to prepare the disk, answer yes to work with the entire 14GB.

-Not necessary to use fdisk if you have the retail or generic OEM XP CD.
both are bootable CDs. Enter BIOS setup. Set the boot order to CD first,
hard drive second. Insert the CD. Exit BIOS and let the CD boot the system.

You'll end up at the XP setup screens. If you take all of the options to
setup Windows, you'll reach the final screen (before Windows starts the
actual install) and will be asked where to install the operating system. If
you read that screen carefully, you'll see the options for working with the
partitions. Taking that path, you can delete the existing partitions and
create a new one that encompasses the entire 14 GB. Then format. Then
continue with the XP install.

-To resize and merge the existing partitions without losing what is
currently on the hard drive, use a product such as Partition Magic or
BootitNG.

 

[Bob Harris]

A couple of suggestions:

1. Did you happen to format as FAT16, maybe by accident? If so, that is
limited to 2Gig per partition.

2. Try deleting all partitions, then and reformating as FAT32.

3. You can delelte partitions and format using a DOS floppy with FDISK, or
using the XP recovery console run from the XP CDROM. The recovery console
is friendlier. It can also format as NTFS, if you so desire. Here are some
links on using the recovery console:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm



http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm



http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm (near bottom)