HOW DO I FORMAT MY PARTITION WITH THE DREADED VISTA ON IT??

[Guest]

Hey guys please can you help. Im not a techno geek or computer wizard so plz
keep jargon to a minimum, think of me as a computer for dummies student!
Right I have XP on one partition of my HDD in my laptop and Vista on
another. I want to format the Vista partition as this OS is just too bugged
for my liking and is a pain in the ass, plus its slowed my laptop to the pace
of a drunk slug! I have tried formatting the hardrive through windos xp but
it wont allow me to do so. Is there another way I can format it, if so
please could you be kind enough to give me step by step instructions on how
to do so. Any help would be very much appreciated. Yours- Ben Anderson-

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

Are you not able to accomplish this with the same partitioning software you
used to make the second partition? If so, try searching for "Ranish" or
"GParted"on the internet. These are free partitioning software programs
that allows you to manipulate partitions, including deleting a partition and
resizing a partition..

Another thing, since Vista probably modified your boot files (giving you the
choice of booting to either Vista or XP when you start your computer) you
will also have to manually edit this. There are some free software programs
available for this as well. Search the newsgroup for "BCEdit."

Before you try any of this, make a full backup of anything you don't want to
lose.

 

[John]

What I don't understand is how people like yourself ignore the warnings, and
based on very little experience install a beta operating system on a
important machine. I supposed you thought it was something you might be
able to use for free instead of paying for the final version when it comes
out?

Formatting the partition with Vista will not get rid of the new boot loader
which has taken over your old boot loader, look for a program on neowin.net
called EasyBCD which should allow you to remove the new boot loader.

To format the drive from XP in the security tab of the drive you need to
take ownership in the advanced settings, and after that is completed, then
format the drive in XP.

Next time use a little more common sense before you jump into testing a beta
operating system without being fully prepared. Your lucky it didn't just
not work at all, and make it so you couldn't boot into either operating
system....

Hey guys please can you help. Im not a techno geek or computer wizard so
plz
keep jargon to a minimum, think of me as a computer for dummies student!
Right I have XP on one partition of my HDD in my laptop and Vista on
another. I want to format the Vista partition as this OS is just too bugged
for my liking and is a pain in the ass, plus its slowed my laptop to the
pace
of a drunk slug! I have tried formatting the hardrive through windos xp but
it wont allow me to do so. Is there another way I can format it, if so
please could you be kind enough to give me step by step instructions on how
to do so. Any help would be very much appreciated. Yours- Ben Anderson-

 

[John Barnett MVP]

If you are using Windows XP why can't you go to administrative tools, click
computer management and fromat the drive from there? Maybe i'm missing
something but i can format my Vista partition without 'taking ownership'
quite easily from Windows XP. Alternatively, use a third party partitioning
application.

Of course reformatting the drive only gets rid of Vista, it won't remove the
Vista boot manager, so as soon as you have formatted and rebooted you will
still get the dula boot menu. Over time i've tried various methods of
removing the Vista boot menu, all with little success. As for EasyBCD it
will not install for me so i can't actually say whether this method works or
not.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail. The Author shall not be liable for any
direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use
of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this mail..

 

[andy]

Hey guys please can you help. Im not a techno geek or computer wizard so plz
keep jargon to a minimum, think of me as a computer for dummies student!
Right I have XP on one partition of my HDD in my laptop and Vista on
another. I want to format the Vista partition as this OS is just too bugged
for my liking and is a pain in the ass, plus its slowed my laptop to the pace
of a drunk slug! I have tried formatting the hardrive through windos xp but
it wont allow me to do so. Is there another way I can format it, if so
please could you be kind enough to give me step by step instructions on how
to do so. Any help would be very much appreciated. Yours- Ben Anderson-

Do you know the specific reason why the Vista partition cannot be
formatted while running Windows XP? Once you learn that, then you can
proceed without screwing yourself. Sounds like Windows XP is stopping
you from doing something that will result in your not being able to
run Windows XP.

 

[Mike Williams]

Do you know the specific reason why the Vista partition cannot be
formatted while running Windows XP? Once you learn that, then you can
proceed without screwing yourself. Sounds like Windows XP is stopping
you from doing something that will result in your not being able to
run Windows XP.

The user access rights change in Vista, so amongst other things, you
will have to go and make sure that you have the full set of rights
required to format that drive.

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

But the user access rights in XP should not change whether Vista is
installed or not, right? Or am I not thinking that one through.

The OP is attempting to remove Vista by formatting the drive from XP.

 

[Jason Gurtz]

In XP, right-click floppy and Create MS-DOS startup disk.

download fdisk from MS:
<http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=263044>

Boot off the disk and fire up fdisk to delete the second non-dos
partition. Just be aware of what you're doing.

If you fsck up, then you have learned the lesson about why you should be
a techie person if you're going to do techie things.

Back in XP you can use the fixboot and fixmbr commands to restore your
bootsector or if you're lazy, just do a repair install of XP.

~Jason

--

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The user rights haven't changed on my machine, Mark. I can access Vista from
XP. Admittedly i don't have the requested rights from to access XP from
Vista but you are prompted by vista as to whether you want to continue
accessing XP and the rights are 'obviously' changed as you proceed to access
the XP partition.

As i said earlier i can format my Vista partition from Windows XP

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail. The Author shall not be liable for any
direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use
of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this mail..

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Did you try deleting the Vista partition and then creating a new one with
the Disk Manager?

 

[Guest]

Yes thankyou for the grilling no need to act so high and mighty. Please can
you tell me how to access the security option in order to gain ownership of
the drive, thanks -Ben

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

I may be wrong, but try this:

In XP, go to "My Computer" and Right-click on the drive that you want to
take ownership of. Select "Properties" from the context menu and there
should be a tab that says "Security" so click on it. Then (I'm going from
memory here) click on "Advanced" and then click on "Edit." From there you
can select your user name and edit several different things.

Hope this helps!