Partitioning

[Dave Rondini]

How do I partition a hard drive in xp home ed. I dont have a startup disk
for xp although I do have one for 98. I tried to boot from the cd and
thought that maybe I could find fdisk in the recovery console but It
wouldn't let me in without a password. This is my dads machine and the
system is set up without a password and yes I tried leaving it blank and
hitting enter. Didn't work. Any help would be appriciated, Dave

 

[Chris Lanier]

Greetings --

To partition a drive you can do it within the Windows Setup not Recovery
Console. Remember that it is destructive partitioning. All data will be
lost. If you wish to keep the data you must purchase a program like
Partition Magic.

 

[Ramesh [MVP]]

Hi Dave,

** First, backup the data on the hard disk to a removable storage device **

1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive.
2. At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER to continue.
3. Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.
4. If an existing Windows XP installation is detected, you will be prompted
to repair it. At this point hit the ESC key (in other words, do not
repair).
5. The screen will now list all existing partitions and un-partitioned space
for each hard disk. Use the cursor/arrow keys to choose where to create the
new partition. Press D to delete an existing partition or press C to create
a new partition in un-partitioned space. If you press D to delete an
existing partition, you must then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L
if it is the System partition) to confirm that you want to delete that
partition. Repeat this process for each of the existing partitions that you
want to move (or remove) in order to create your new partition. When all
necessary partitions are deleted, you can then select the remaining
un-partitioned space and then press C to create new partitions.

Note: If you want to create a partition where at least one partition already
exists, you must first delete the existing partition or partitions and then
create the new partition. Type the size in megabytes (MB) that you want the
new partition to be. Then press ENTER. Alternatively, you can just press
ENTER to create the partition using all the available space (i.e. create the
biggest possible partition).

If you want to install Windows XP, use the arrow keys to select the
partition where you want to install Windows XP and then press ENTER.

Note: If you do not want to format the partition and install Windows XP,
press F3 twice to quit Setup, and ignore the following section. If you do
this, you must find another way to format the partition.

===Formatting the drive===

To format the partition, use the arrow keys to select the partition where
you want to install Windows XP.

* Select the NTFS formatting option and press ENTER
* Choose Quick Format or Full Format:

Differences Between a Quick Format and Format During Windows XP Setup
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302686

* Continue installing Windows


Windows XP Clean Install Guides:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://theeldergeek.com/xp_home_install_-_graphic.htm

--
Ramesh - Microsoft MVP
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

~ Please reply to newsgroup ~


How do I partition a hard drive in xp home ed. I dont have a startup disk
for xp although I do have one for 98. I tried to boot from the cd and
thought that maybe I could find fdisk in the recovery console but It
wouldn't let me in without a password. This is my dads machine and the
system is set up without a password and yes I tried leaving it blank and
hitting enter. Didn't work. Any help would be appriciated, Dave

 

[Guest]

I used my fdisk program from floppy startup that ME
provided. Hopefully 98 does the same. It creates fat32
not ntfs. You can put 98 on c: xp on d: etc. You can let
xp do ntfs (which I read is more secure)or fat32; but you
first have to create the partitioning. You can see fat32
from an ntfs system/drive but not vice versa. Problem is
that if you have 98 on c: , and only c: defined, I'm
fairly sure you have to wipe it and reinstall after
allocating the partitions that you want. I found that
it's nice to have a 3rd drive for stuff that is common,
like music, page files, downloads, etc. or that I don't
want to lose if I reinstall any system on the drives
below it so to speak.

 

[Alex Nichol]

How do I partition a hard drive in xp home ed. I dont have a startup disk
for xp although I do have one for 98. I tried to boot from the cd and
thought that maybe I could find fdisk in the recovery console but It
wouldn't let me in without a password.

Either use a third party tool, that will adjust partitioning without
destroying everything, or you have to do it as part of a new setup of
the system, after backing up everything and deleting the present
partition as part of a new Setup. I would use BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional trial)